Wild Wild West 1. Chapter 1

October 20, 1874

Chicago, Illinois

The Home of Henry Honoré

The glorious, crispness of autumn was in the air. The brilliant, breezy day had begun with a generous sunrise over the lake, giving the great mistress of the mid-west a comely blush. Only three years returned to its former glory the city of Chicago waited for the day to begin, bustling and groaning at a subdued crawl until the newsboys began to shout the latest, the fish hawkers screeched like seagulls about the first catch and the maids and housewives of the city began to brew their first pot of coffee.

The Honoré house stood out amongst the others of its kind like a beacon of new hope, progress and the future of the city. Henry Honoré, a businessman from Louisville, Kentucky had been in the process of making his fortune in real estate, when the Chicago fire provided more worthless land on which to build his empire, than ever before. While he toiled in the ashes left by the great fire of 1871 his fifth child, Miss Ida Marie Honoré delighted in the girlish fantasies and fears of every other young woman on such an occasion as that October day. Sequestered in her childhood room with her 25-year-old sister, both still bearing the glow of youth, Ida and Bertha whispered together, laughing and tittering.

They would spend the morning together, Bertha, the elder, a recent mother and wife of four years giving advice to her younger sister of 20 years. They hugged and cried often, remembering the joys of their childhoods, and the wonderful freedoms that their father's wealth, and their mother's insistence on their education had brought them. Together they would plan for the future, children and outings, knowing that the wealth of Bertha's husband, and the auspicious standing of Ida's future husband, would make such reunions difficult. How terrible would it be, they both wondered, if one or the other should move to the far end of the country, or be removed from it all together.

In some ways, they would joke, it would have been better to be simple children of simple men. But only in some ways, very few ways, Ida laughed.

Together they would ready Ida throughout the day, knowing that below the servants and maids were bustling about the house decorating with white linens and gay flowers in every corner. A great feast was being made for the guests and staff, cakes and exotic fruits, meats and breads and cheeses, wines and burgundy and brandies. Every amenity would be provided and, in preparation for the 2 photographers who had been hired, even the street itself had been newly paved with cobblestone. All for the upcoming wedding, the social event for the season.

In several hotels throughout the city, all of them owned in some way or other by Mr. Honoré, all of his guests had been housed. One in particular held the brash 24-year-old groom attended by his younger brother and his father. Their morning had begun differently.

Instead of quiet giggles and titters there had been a sportsman's romp inside the hotel suite, the three men participating in a mimicked display of a popular native American game played by the tribes in the Black Hills region. The father of the groom, a dignified 52-year-old man, normally given to wearing solemn black, double-breasted suits, dark spats and a top hat, that morning rough-housed with his boys in nothing more than an undershirt and simple brown trousers.

Instead of tears and embraces the past was remembered with loud guffaws from the boys, and a quiet, delighted twinkle in the eye of the older gentleman, who watched his sons Fred and Jesse with proprietary pride.

They talked of those that were not attending, the younger sister Nellie who had recently married and left the country, and the second oldest boy Buck, who had just entered school in New York and was focused on his studies. Their mother was nowhere to be found that morning, but knowing her station as a popular hostess, none of the men escorting her could doubt that she was somewhere in the household of the Honoré's seeing to the preparations for her son's wedding day.

The first photographer to have been hired to record the blessed day had been rehearsing his art off and on for three years, as a hobby. It was only recently that he had begun to fully focus on taking photographs of consequence and worth. Unfortunately, no matter his focus, it came to pass that commercial photography simply was not one of his gifts.

This problem had been discussed at length with the father of the groom, and a compromise was reached. There would be two photographers. One hired by the Honorés, who would actually take the photos, and the other already in the employ of the groom's family, who would parade around with a camera, setting off flash powder, but serving an entirely different purpose.

At 2pm that afternoon, with the pure fall breeze sweeping through the Honoré house and casting the smell of the late season roses, lilacs and lilies into every corner, the preparations were finalized and the staff was in place. Each waiter or usher standing at attention in a short black coat, vest and black slacks and each maid in white blouse, black apron, and skirt was smiling in anticipation. All preparations for the banquet to follow the blessed event were completed and both photographers had already been about. One, Charles Delevan Mosher, photographed the cake, and the smiling pastry chef; the grand hall down which the bride would parade with her attendants and the great room in which the bride and groom would be wed.

The other seemed more interested in the exterior of the house, checking every nook and cranny of the grounds and speaking frequently with the police constables assigned to look after the event.

At 2:30pm the bride was readying in her chambers. Her groom, with his father and young brother Jesse, were preparing in their own room in the Honoré house under the attendance and watchful eye of a handsome, rather athletic manservant.

The guests had begun arriving. Those of great import were invited to sit for a photograph in the small studio made out of a vestibule wherein Charles Mosher reigned as king. A renowned master of portraits, he was able to take each photograph at the alarming rate of five minutes, start to finish. Each exposure lasting only five seconds.

The photos, he promised, would be ready in a matter of days, delighting the guests into chattering excitedly about the marvels of their host and his thoughtfulness.

As the appointed hour approached the manservant attending to the groom excused himself briefly, leaving the small room in which the mildly nervous man prepared and taking care to set a police constable outside the door while he was gone. Traveling adroitly through the house the dashing young man bowed respectfully to each guest, doing his best to avoid showing his exasperation when he was more than once given a stray hat or coat. These he made a point of handing off to the more experienced attendants before he managed to find the second photographer, a Mr. Harlan Ahrens, who stood at that moment in the garden of the Honoré home pouring flash powder into the tray above his camera.

"Mr. Arrons, could I have a word?" The manservant called, earning a distracted and irritated look from the photographer who appeared to be in the process of taking the photograph of a police constable and his wife.

"It is pronounced Ahrens..." The Germanic man insisted rolling the 'r' and extending the 's' sound against the soft palate. He threw his fingers at the irksome attendant and returned to his work.

"Mr. Ahrens.." The manservant attempted, not taking to the brush-off so easily. "Forgive the interruption but if I could have a moment of your time..."

"Why shouldn't you have a moment of my time, you are of course a senator in disguise? A royal perhaps? One of the elite of Chicago, asking to have your picture taken?" Pausing mid-diatribe the man bent under the dark cloth attached to the camera box, the trigger in one hand, the lens focus in the other. "Hold it, please...bleiben bewegungslos."

With a sound like a sneeze the photographer snapped the trigger, igniting the flash powder and exposing the plate at the same time, before he released the trigger seconds later, once more blocking any light from reaching the now imprinted negative. Popping out from under the cloth cover the man bowed slightly to his subjects. "Danke, danke, Sie sind nette Leute!"

The constable seemed far less delighted than his wife as they stepped away from the brass bench on which they had posed. As the other guests continued to mill the photographer collected his camera, pulling the exposed plate from the box and putting in a new one.

"And now...you...waiter. What is it you want?" Ahrens asked, looking down his bulbous nose and handlebar mustache at the blue-eyed man who bore an almost ever-present smirk.

"I have been sent to inform you that the groom and his groomsmen are ready for their photo to be taken." The waiter mentioned, his hands going behind his back in a pose that seemed comfortable. He looked over the photographer's shoulder, and around where the two of them stood, then dropped his tone and said, "Hey, Arte. I have a question I've been meaning to ask you all day."

Keeping his posture slightly erudite and disapproving, Arte said, "Yes, James, what is it?"

"How many times are you going to take photos with just those two plates?"

Patting a hand over the spare plate that he had just tucked into his breast pocket, and looking to the plate that now sat in the camera, Arte considered the question, his lower lip upsetting the line of his mustache for a moment before he looked back to his partner, his eyes glittering. "How very perceptive of you, James. You shall be the first of today's attendees to notice. However I'll have you know that I may be on the very brink-"

A guest walked by and Arte rested his hand on the top of the camera, his words seamlessly continuing with the Germanic accent. "The very brink of discovering a new, revolutionary form of photo-graphy called composite photos. Where-in many photos can be taken in a short period of time-"

As the guest continued on their way Arte dropped the accent casually watching them over his shoulder. "More importantly James, that constable that I was taking a photograph of..?"

"Yeah?"

"Was none other than Josiah Brande Lillith."

"Lillith?" Jim glanced after the couple noticing the way that Mrs. Lillith clung closely to her husband, especially when another young woman walked by. He looked askance at his partner after the name rang empty in his memory.

"The itchy, constable brother of a certain young lady of our recent acquaintance?"

Jim's head snapped to take in the couple disappearing into the house, before he looked back to his partner with sudden realization. "_Joanna _Lillith!?"

Arte gave a slow deliberate nod, with a pleased smile, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "The very one." He chuckled as Jim shuddered visibly. "Don't worry, partner, I'll keep an eye on him." Arte grinned, still pleased as punch.

"Anything, or anyone else strike as you phony or out-of-place?" Jim asked, sweeping his hand in the direction of the house where most of the guests were meandering.

Arte slipped back into character in every manner but his voice, hefting his camera with the grace born of doing it every day. He scanned the garden as he did so. "Other than one of the maids who keeps disappearing to the washroom, nothing out of the ordinary. I spoke with the cook. She has some suspicions about the young lady, but none pertaining to the guest of the hour. There are men stationed outside the property in every place through which a man could possibly enter."

"Even a small man?" Jim asked, pausing and bowing slightly to let an older matron pass into the house before he and his partner did.

"Especially a small man. I even instructed them to look closely at hefty children wearing top hats."

Jim smirked at his partner and waited until Arte said, "Yes I got a few strange looks, but I've come to expect that. Say..."

Both men paused at the door, watching the garden empty of stragglers, and listening to the bustle in the great hall as the ushers seated each guest.

"Do we _really_ think Loveless is behind these threats?"

"About as much as we think anyone and everyone _else_ is behind these threats. Arte, we have nothing to go on."

"I know but...it just seems so much more personal. If it were a threat on _your_ life I would understand, but on one of Grant's sons?"

"Speaking of, I have to get back there. Fred is holding his own, but if the President gives him anymore fatherly advice, he might explode."

Arte grinned, clapping his partner on the back. He fell back into character completely, entering the great hall where a string quartet had begun to play. Across the hall, directly opposite where he stood he could see the other photographer, the actual photographer, setting up a wide shot of the room and he bowed slightly, leaving the shot and moving down the side of the wall.

One hundred chairs had been set up in the room in 10 rows of 10, providing a wide aisle for the bridal party and ample seating for the invited guests. While many more attendees had been invited to the reception, the wedding ceremony was intentionally small and private. This had begun as a suggestion of the bride's family, then had been insisted upon by the President's staff, even before President Grant had received the written threats.

The quiet bubble of conversation in the room was buoyed by the busy etchings of the string quartet, their choice of pre-wedding music speaking to the anticipatory brightness of the occasion and the still comfortable cool breeze drifting about the house. Arte had memorized the names of most of the guests invited to the ceremony and nodded respectfully to each of them as he passed, looking for odd bulges in clothing or packages in hand.

All gifts were collected at the door and taken quickly from the house to a small building on the waterfront where-in two agents of the Secret Service opened and carefully checked through them, then returned them to their original state and placed them aboard the train scheduled to take the couple on their honeymoon.

With the distant assassination of President Lincoln still fresh in the mind's of the men of the Secret Service, no chances were being taken.

At precisely 3 o'clock the mood changed, and with it the music, a song playing that any who had attended a wedding since May of that year would recognize as the march played at the wedding of Nellie Grant in the White House. This, along with the announcement of the arrival of the parents prompted the many guests to look back to the double doors leading into the hall.

Henry Honoré and his wife were the first to enter, walking proudly down to the front row, where they remained standing. The arrival of the president was as subdued as possible, with every man in the hall rising delighted to his feet. Guiding his lovely, but famously cross-eyed bride Julia, Ulysses S. Grant strode down the hall, the mother of the groom gleaming with pride and smiling brightly. Their youngest son Jesse followed, a handsomely impish, broad chested 16-year-old boy looking much like his mother.

The maid of honor, Bertha Honoré Palmer was also greeted with murmurs of approval. Already a woman of some fame in Chicago social circles the young woman had deliberately worn subdued colors out of respect for her sister, but still managed to be resplendent. Arte found he could hardly take his eyes off her, forgetting his character and his duty as he watched the vivacious woman walk the hall. He had never met her before that day and found her stirring, to say the least.

As the march began to play again the guests stood, prompting Arte, at one end of the hall, and James, at the other, to take to the sets of stairs by which each had been standing, moving to an elevated position from where they could better see the group. Arte quietly set his camera up, as though preparing to take a shot of the bride, instead making ready the small pistol he had kept hidden in the box. He could see West making similar preparations across the way.

Ida Honoré stood in breathtaking off-white satin with the sun at her back, a delicate embroidered and pearl studded veil cascading over her face and down her back, glistening in the light. Fresh dew upon the flower of her youth, a reporter would later call it. Beneath the veil her dress was of the latest and highest fashion, a Worth of Paris, sent over in pieces and fitted to her precisely, the day before the wedding. Her engagement ring, also bearing pearls and diamonds, as well as the earrings that she wore, defined her face beneath the veil, glittering like unbidden promises.

She was the most beautiful bride Chicago had ever seen, it was declared, the statement dimmed only by the fact that it had applied to her older sister as well, only four years prior.

As she started her march down the aisle her future husband, Frederick Dent Grant, the eldest son of Ulysses S. Grant, stepped into place before the minister, standing straight and tall in his cavalry uniform, looking nothing at all like his father. His recent service in the west had been made known to the newspapers in Chicago for the purpose of their wedding announcements and Freddy appeared in that moment the very epitome of the man described. Brave, unyielding, strong, just the sort of man any woman should be honored to marry.

Some would later report seeing the tremble in Frederick Grant's hand as he took his bride's gloved palm, others would declare they had seen a tear glitter beneath Ida Honoré's veil as they said their vows. All agreed it was a beautiful and divinely executed ceremony.

The reception that followed the new custom of throwing the bouquet, and seeing the bride and groom to their carriage, was no less appealing.

After James West saw the newly christened Mr. and Mrs. Grant to the presidential train at the Van Buren Street station, where-in the personal attendants took over their protection, he returned to the gala at the Honoré residence where he and his partner enjoyed a tense, but uneventful evening.

As the very last of the guests were escorted to their homes, Mr. and Mrs. Grant and their young son Jesse were driven to where The Wanderer sat, quietly chuffing in readiness.

A third car had been added to the train for their comfort and while Gordon saw to the Presidential party, West spoke with the guards that had been on duty throughout the day, taking their report of little activity and giving them the rest of the evening off. The train would be departing within the hour, heading back for Washington with himself and his partner as personal escort.

Standing on the platform between the Presidential car and the varnish car Gordon, West and President Grant enjoyed a celebratory cigar together and discussed the wedding.

It had been an excellent day, the President offered and both men agreed, yes it had been excellent.

Came off without a hitch, the President concluded, and both men beamed tiredly with pride. Without a hitch, yes.

"So what were those wretched threats then?" The President asked finally, knowing and accepting the answer he was given.

"We don't know Mr. President, not yet."

Ahead the engineer, Orrin, could be seen moving through the rising moonlight doing his final check of the engine before he stopped below the crowded platform.

"We've only to receive the mail before we shove off, Sirs." The man informed them.

"Mail? Orrin, we shouldn't be taking on any mail." Arte said, feeling a chill of alarm start down his spine.

The engineer, a man grown accustomed to the peculiarities of his position caught the tone in Mr. Gordon's voice and quickly informed, "I was told it was top priority."

"If it was top priority it should have come over the wire." Jim said and gestured for the President to step back into his car.

"Orrin, get on back to the engine and get us ready to depart." Arte said then disappeared into the car as well, following Grant and arming himself, watching his partner who stepped down from the train and away from it, facing the station.

"Artemus?" The president asked, his eyes sharp and alert, his body tense as he stood ready nearby. "You're certain that the men checked every package before they placed it aboard Frederick's train?"

Arte nodded, his eyes focused on West. "Absolutely, Mr. President. I gave them a rather lengthy list of what to look for. They were thorough."

Outside a man stepped down from the station, a canvas bag over his shoulder that appeared to be empty. He started toward the train, looking weary, as if he had spent the day on his feet and was anxious to return home.

Arte watched as Jim twitched his wrist, the sleeve gun popping into his hand which he kept down by his side. His other hand still casually held the cigar, the occasional puff of smoke rising over his head.

"Julia and Jesse have already gone to bed, Mr. Gordon. Should I wake them?" Grant's voice was calm, patient and quiet, belying the panic that Arte was certain the man was feeling.

Arte only shook his head, focused entirely on every move that the courier with the bag made as he stalled twenty feet in front of West. He seemed to make up his mind about something then continued to approach, a single envelope in his hand.

Arte stepped out onto the platform to check either side of the Presidential car, making sure no one was approaching on either side before he focused on the man now addressing his partner.

"I've been trying to deliver this letter all day, sir. It's addressed to President Grant, care of the Secret Service...and something called The Wanderer."

Jim felt a familiar twist in his gut. The feeling that he had been getting from the day the threatening letters began to arrive, uncannily always in the path of the President, betraying knowledge of the inner workings of the President's daily schedule. The very presence of the missives was alone a threat.

"And who gave you the letter?" Jim asked, his stance not changing.

The postal carrier shrugged, looking between the lone Secret Service Agent and the train. His hand extending the letter that no one had been willing to take from him all day long. "It was sent through the United States Postal Service, no postmark or return address. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm only trying to do my job."

"Surely you know what to do with unclaimed letters." Arte called from the train car, causing the man to snap his gaze that way. Jim watched him carefully, relaxing when the man's surprised reaction was limited to what he would expect out of a civilian.

"Sir, of course. But this letter is certified. It must be delivered, and signed for."

"Clever..." Arte remarked, directing the comment to his partner.

Jim closed the gap between himself and the mailman and took the letter, watching the man closely as he dug into his mail bag pulling out a receipt pad and pencil.

"Is the President really in there?" The civil servant asked, watching Jim sign, before tucking the pad back into his bag.

West smiled around his cigar and said, "Thank you for service." Then waited for the postal worker to leave, watching as he backed reluctantly away from the train, craning his neck for a glimpse of the leader of the nation.

Once Jim had stepped up onto the car platform he signaled to the engineer with a shrill whistle, and the sound was echoed loudly by the engine before the wheels screeched, turned, and caught against the rails. The cars jerked in succession and Jim stepped into the Presidential car, showing the envelope to his partner and President Grant.

"Another threat?" Grant asked.

"Likely." Jim said, talking around his cigar while he carefully broke open the envelope.

A folded paper, two sizes too small for its container fell out into his hand and he gave it to Arte.

"Mr. Grant-" Arte read the familiar greeting, the easily recognizable handwriting florid but shaky. "I have given you suitable warning, and I have promised to return your unkindnesses.

I have sworn an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. As you have taken from me, I shall take from you.

I now hold your son in my possession. You have ended the life of my most precious child, and so too shall I end that of yours. But unlike you, I shall offer you the chance to see him once more before he meets his end. You will be given the chance I never was.

Further instructions will follow, you would be wise to accept them without hesitation. Your obedient servant, MO."


	2. Chapter 2

The first letter had arrived in September of 1874 and had been so brief and so vague that those who sifted through the regular stacks of mail received by the White House had disregarded it as belonging to yet another harmless kook. They had in fact first assumed it was sent to the late President Lincoln by someone not quite caught up with the times. The second and third letters had sounded much the same, threatening doom on the President (but not specific to which President) and on his family. Promising retribution for a wrong deed done years ago.

Then the threats became more specific, not only detailing that the wrong had been done against the writer's child, but that the revenge would be enacted in kind. The writer claimed that they had been watching over the president's boy, keeping a very close eye on him. Then the letter specifically mentioned a family outing that Grant and his three sons had taken together. A hunting trip deep in the woods of West Virginia. The details the writer had included in his letter were finally what brought the missives to the president's attention.

No one, but those on the trip, could have possibly known such things.

From then on each letter was carefully preserved and studied. The threats continued, seeming idle, but with Frederick's wedding approaching Grant was more and more concerned about the joyful event drawing the attention of his anonymous adversary.

Once he knew that Gordon and West were unengaged he had invited the men to the White House for a long weekend during which they discussed the coming nuptials and what could or couldn't be done to prevent disaster from befalling the event.

While both men had immediately begun to suspect, amongst others, the diabolical Doctor Loveless, they didn't dare narrow their suspicions to the diminutive genius. In the end they had devised a plan that would cover the probable outcomes, while still keeping the extreme precautions as invisible to the public as possible.

A smoother, more brilliantly conceived plan had never before been attempted.

Up until the final letter had arrived Arte was ready to consider writing a brief memoir on how the operation came off without a hitch.

Now they were waiting tensely aboard The Wanderer by the telegraph machine to hear back from the station masters along the route Frederick's train was supposed to have taken, trying to beat the locomotive before it left civilization entirely to get some confirmation that Grant's eldest son was still safely onboard with his bride.

"He is never specific..." Arte muttered, his chin resting on his left fist, his right hand balancing a magnifying glass which was trained on the ink stains of the latest letter. "...the writer. He speaks in poems and riddles, he sounds more archaically Biblical than he does insane. Like a prophet declaring God's wrath, not a madman."

"There are those who would say there isn't much of a difference between the two, Arte." Jim spoke through the fan of correspondences he held in his hand, going from first to last and checking the formation of each letter. "His handwriting gets shakier over time."

"That could be emotional distress, fear, or excitement. Some sort of debilitating disease crippling his hands, or weakening him in some way. All that really tells us is that the letters are genuine."

From where he lay on the settee Jim dropped the spread of letters so that he could see the crown of his partner's head over the top of the open set of false books sitting on the desk. "How so?"

Arte sat up, dropping the magnifying glass to the surface of the desk and rubbing his eyes with the forefinger and thumb of one hand. "If the writer had been falsifying the tale, remaining intentionally vague in the beginning to avoid being caught in a lie, or writing himself into a corner, his handwriting would have started out uncertain, with more blots of ink marking stops and starts. Over time he would have gained confidence with his charade, compounding the lie as he felt comfortable with it until he made his final master stroke. This letter..." Arte held up the parchment they had received only hours ago, "Should be the boldest of them all..."

"But it's the shakiest." Jim sat up then stood walking to the desk where he laid each of the previous letters next to the newest one.

"Yes..." Arte sighed softly, his jaw tense. "It would suggest that the writer has done precisely what he has been threatening to do all along." Arte's gaze drifted up to meet his partner's, before he answered the unspoken question. "The tremulous nature of his handwriting would suggest second thoughts. One can only have second thoughts about an act, if one has actually committed it."

The telegraph key began to rattle, Arte and Jim listening intently before West went to the map on the other side of the room finding the station that had answered them and stabbing the town with a push-pin.

"Confirmation, Grant train passed through on time. No delays." Arte translated, looking to the dark blue pin now positioning the newlywed's train no more than an hour away from the Canadian border.

"They're on time Arte, and have been all along." Jim confirmed and Arte could feel the vice holding his chest start to release.

"We need absolute confirmation."

"Have we heard anything from New York?"

"No, but given the hour, I'm not surprised."

"Even labeled top priority?"

Arte smirked at his partner slowly and stood, kneading the worn muscles in his lower back. "There are many other priorities for a boy of Buck's age on a Saturday night, his first year in college."

Jim chuckled, shaking his head.

"Either way, the writer has promised to reveal who he has taken." Arte said solemnly.

Jim sobered, his voice grave as he agreed, "He did promise to give Grant the chance he never got."

Both men fell into quiet contemplation, Arte shaking his head after a moment, feeling torn. "I..._we_ have known Grant too long, Jim. Since before he even commanded the whole of the Union army during the War Between the States."

"Since Vicksburg, right?"

"Right." Arte paused. "He's not perfect."

"No man is."

"He made mistakes. But to...kill a child..."Arte shook his head. "He could never have done that."

* * *

December 27th, 1862

South of Greeneville, Mississippi

It was night, cool but not cold. The day had been wet, rainy and gloomy, and the quiet man in the lone wagon had hunched under a canvas slicker for more than his share of thunder showers throughout the long hours. The wagon he drove, pulled by a pair of mules, carried piles of sodden hay that, after two days of rain, had begun to mold. It wouldn't be long before he, in his woolen trousers and three-day old shirt and jacket began to mold too.

Two days ago he might have stopped at the first sign of wet, and found an abandoned barn or shed to shelter himself, his cargo and the mules, until the weather had passed, but now his time was limited. It had taken far too long to get into Vicksburg, accomplish his goals and get back out again. Knowing that he had only ten miles to go made the itchy damp slightly more accommodating.

The tireless mule team pulling the wagon along the rutted, mud filled roads had been his only companions on this trip and he had taken to singing to them. Of course he had to be cautious as to what he was singing, and to which side each song might imply that his sympathies lay. In the end he had found the most comfort in singing Christmas carols. After all it was the season, or it had been.

Considering who he was supposed to be, even singing Christmas carols was malapropos.

Five miles outside of Greeneville the 37-year-old stopped his wagon, pulling the team to the side of the road and up onto a slight rise that would keep him from getting stuck in the mud. It had to be close to midnight. On occasion the moon would peer brightly down through the thick clouds illuminating the glistening hay on the wagon, the water-logged winter grass along the berm and the deadened fields of wheat. Stepping down from the driver's seat the tired dark-haired man stretched aching muscles as he slogged back to the rear of the wagon. He removed the soaked plantation hat that was practically rotting on his head and reluctantly pulled off the slicker, that despite its thin construction was keeping some warmth trapped underneath.

The moon was bright enough that he had no reason to light a lantern, and the man quietly opened the tail gate of his wagon. Instead of being inundated by a flood of foul-smelling hay, however, he was greeted by several canvas wrapped bales of cotton, hidden in the false bottom of the vehicle. The walls of the wagon, in fact, formed a box that could hold up to 14 bales, and it appeared that the top boards of the wagon and the canvas wrappings around the bales had kept the costly merchandise relatively dry.

Of course cotton hadn't been what he planned to take out of Vicksburg, but it had been necessary.

In a small wooden chest at the back of the wagon the young man had hidden a dozen maps, all of them without names, elevation or cardinal directions marked yet. Those he would add after he had changed into the Union uniform also hidden in the chest. It too, thankfully, was dry.

The young man pulled it from its hiding place, smirking behind his thick mutton chops and mustache at the Captain's bars on the collar, and the gold braid on the sleeves. The cuffs, the trousers and his hat still bore the red stripes that had marked him once as an artilleryman. He had not been a member of the cavalry for long, but had not wasted time in sewing on his new rank before taking on this mission. He would think about whether or not he wanted to trade out the yellow for the red later.

Flicking off one side of the black jacket he wore and struggling out of the heavily sodden sleeve the Union captain-turned-spy twisted the length of cloth, wringing the water out of it before removing the rest of the garment and doing the same to the other side. He was pulling the tails of his shirt from his pants, one side of his braces thrown from his shoulder, when the mules tugged hard on the wagon, straining for a moment against the brake before settling again.

The captain paused, searching the shadows around him, certain he was alone on the deserted road.

Still accustomed to the slow speech pattern of the south that he'd been using the past few days the captain quietly drawled, "You boys settle down now. We're nearly home."

Jerking the other side of his braces from his shoulders the captain dragged his shirt off, shivering in the cold while he wrung out the cotton article, snatching the bright white uniform shirt that was gloriously dry and warm, by comparison, sighing as the familiar piece of clothing settled over his chest.

He had buttoned the cuffs, and the short collar and was reaching for his uniform vest when the mules strained again, this time letting out loud brays into the night. The wagon rocked and the series of incidences became too much for the captain to remain calmly unarmed. Snatching for his sidearm, still holstered and laying in the chest from which he had drawn his uniform, the captain brought the weapon to bear seconds before the butt of a rifled Springfield musket collided with the side of his head. All he remembered, before the night went black, was the regret in knowing that he was going to fall into the mud and his clean, dry shirt would be dry no more.

* * *

The young Union captain woke midday December 28th, to the gradual discomfort of a raging headache combined with the knowledge that he was chained under his own wagon, from which he had been dragged the remaining five miles to camp. He hung now with his legs and the soaked seat of his pants settled in the mud, his back and shoulders mere inches off the ground, suspended by his wrists, manacled to the gate of the false bed of the wagon.

He expected for a moment to find gray or butternut trousered legs through the gaps in the wagon wheels, patrolling, but instead saw a discomforting, uniform sky blue. He had, it would appear, been captured by his own side.

The Captain blinked against the blur that had taken permanent hold on his eyes, wincing at the pull of dried blood against the side of his face, and considered how much effort it was going to take to lift his head, and whether or not it would be worth it.

It wasn't long before the decision was made for him. The two corporals apparently assigned to guard him and his wagon had noticed he was awake, then had snapped to attention at the approach of an officer. A quiet order had been given for them to 'get him on his lousy Jew feet' and both men had no qualms about gagging theatrically in response to his apparent smell. One of the men supported his arms, releasing the tension on the manacles while the other unhooked the chain from the back of the wagon, then dragged him upright on shaky legs.

The sudden change in orientation sent painful jolts down his stiffened neck, sloshing his brain around like grapes in a wine taster's glass. The captain crammed his eyes shut tight and rode out the pain and nausea like an able-bodied seaman, his sudden awareness of his own unfortunate odor finally making its way to his nose.

The footsteps of an officer, for who else could it be but an officer, stopped ten feet away and he heard the quiet clearing of the throat that marked him as a gentleman. Instead of commenting loudly at the stench, as his men had done, the officer chose to bear it quietly.

"Who is this man?" A voice asked, a familiar voice.

"We don't know. Probably a Jewish merchant. Southerner. Smuggling cotton, as you can see, sir."

"Yes, I can see." The officer sounded almost disappointed, like a normally jubilant father having to chastise his favorite child.

"He stole a Captain's uniform. Was changing into it when the sentries caught up with him."

"Was he armed?"

"Yes, sir. He was carrying this."

"A Navy colt, well cared for. Is this your weapon?"

It took the captain a few seconds to realize that the question had been directed at him. The tossing in his stomach had begun to ease, some of the confusion going with it. He remembered again being only so far outside of the town in which Grant's army had been bivouacked for the night, remembered being delighted about something. Probably something to do with not being wet and cold any longer.

One of the corporals jabbed his shoulder with a finger, and the action felt like it left a new bruise upon already well crafted old bruises. The young captain jerked away from the offending appendage and glared hard at the corporal before he carefully raised his eyes until he could see the well-shined riding boots of the officer. Dark blue, West Point cavalryman's trousers sprouted from the high tops of the leather boots, ending at the opening of the double-breasted, brass buttoned coat. A black vest was tightly cinched around the General's thin waist, but billowed open near the top where a simple black tie hung loosely. The handsome, closely cropped beard complimented the man's simple, straight forward profile and piercing blue eyes.

Closing his eyes tightly the Captain forced himself into some semblance of attention and gave his best salute despite the restraint of the chains on his wrists. "I'm Captain Artemus Gordon formerly of the Union Artillery, assigned to Brigadier General Grant on special assignment...and yes, that pistol is...mi-" He slurred, throwing his elbows out behind him and managing to stay upright as his knees started to buckle.

He caught the shocked look on the face of the Brigadier General himself, the look of disdain and disbelief on the face of the Lieutenant that had been answering the General's questions and the look of surprised doubt on the face of one of the corporals before his world started to darken again and he felt his elbows slip against the course wood of the wagon behind him.

He hated mud, that was his final thought this time, he truly hated mud. Especially Mississippi mud.

* * *

This time Arte woke warm and dry to the gentle glow of a lantern, lit but turned down, nearby. It was night beyond the tent he slept under and the wind brushed the leaf-less branches of a tree against the canvas every few minutes, the bare tips pattering on the surface of the tent like rain. He liked the sound of rain on canvas, Gordon thought. Just so long as he was under the canvas.

This time he was not only warm, but sleeping in the cradling arms of a cot, under several blankets. It was also clearly not his tent. The narrow A-frame that he had managed to scrounge for himself was too small to accommodate the writing desk and chair, the chamber pot, the small card table, the second unoccupied cot and large traveling chest that had been placed inside the wall tent.

No a tent that big had to belong to a high-ranking officer. Someone with the time on his hands to actually write at the writing desk, and sleep on the extra cot, and use the small card table. A table that at that moment held the maps he had been bringing from Vicksburg.

He noticed the hunched back of the man in vest and shirt sleeves belatedly.

"General Grant..." He croaked, thinking about saluting, but never managing to fish his hands out from under the glorious blankets in time.

The blue-eyed, dark-haired man lifted his head and turned on the camp chair, drawing in a quiet breath as he took the spectacles from before his eyes. He considered Gordon then wearily ran his hand over his face.

"Captain, I can never explain to you the..." The man looked down, his eyes focused somewhere beneath the cot Arte lay on. "...horror that I felt when I realized that my men, responding to my orders, had so badly mistreated a human being, let alone a man risking his life for the sake of the Union, and for myself."

When Grant raised his eyes Arte could see that he had been weeping at some point, an action that seemed out of character for the normally unflappable man, and certainly his tears had not been for Gordon's sake.

"I have spent the past three hours composing a letter that I hope, now, I will never have to send. Worse still, as I composed it, I realized that I didn't know to _whom_ I could possibly send it." The general shook his head, lifting a corner of a piece of parchment on which Arte could see a handful of dark, still-wet strokes. "I can hardly expect your cooperation, or forgiveness. And were we under any other circumstances I wouldn't dream of asking any more of you than what you have already given..." Grant's eyes drifted toward the card table and the maps collected there. "However I imagine that those will tell me what I am up against once I reach Vicksburg and the lower Mississippi and I fear that my position will force me to forgo the human kindness I desperately wish to convey."

Gordon's eyes drifted, turning away from the painful sight of a man of decision and firm action, caught up in indecision and regret. His eyes rested briefly on the bright sparkle of a thick decanter of amber liquid and a single glass sitting atop a collapsible table near the second cot, before returning to the decanter.

Grant was about to speak again, drawing in a breath when Arte cleared his throat. "Forgive me, General, but all would be forgiven and restored were you to offer me a glass of brandy just there."

An amused look overtook Grant's face for a moment before he composed himself and stood, moving to the table and pouring two glasses.

"Captain, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at this small breach of gentlemanly comportment, but I trust you will...restrain yourself in the future."

Artemus had only been around the General for a very brief period of time before he had been sent off on his expedition. In that time, however, he had been given the privilege of seeing the General with two of his sons, the eldest, Frederick, and the youngest, six-year-old Jesse. At that time, in the comfort of privacy, he had seen the man's humor and playful nature come to the fore, entirely for the benefit of the young boys who were visiting their father for a week.

Had he not witnessed that side of the great officer he might not have caught the facetious undertones of the stern comment Grant had made.

Arte smirked painfully, working his way up on his elbows before he was able to lower one stiff leg, then the other to the ground. Sitting upright on the cot was another matter, that required weathering the storm in his head once again, but when he did the sweet ochre of brandy greeted him, the snifter of alcohol dangling just in front of his face.

He reached up a shaking hand and accepted the glass, burying his nose in it before he took his first satisfying sip.

"General, I was an artillery Sergeant before joining your merry band, so gentlemanly comportment is a far reach." The brandy burned down his sore throat, numbing it and rewarding him with a pleasant finish. "But if you continue to ply me with this fine liquor, I might just make it."

Grant didn't respond, his eyes instead reflecting a slight easing in tensions before the man took a seat once more at the writing desk. Arte noticed that the general had not joined him in the drink. As the warming hum of the brandy began to soothe the raw ache in his body Arte reached beyond the cot, catching the corner of one of the rolled maps. He pulled it towards him, unrolling one corner and orienting the map until the top edge represented north. He handed the map to the General, then dove back into the brandy before he explained.

"An overview of the fortifications surrounding Vicksburg. Blue for infantry, red for artillery batteries, the black lines are tunnels leading from Vicksburg under ground. Some of them have entrances outside the walls, and some don't."

What had started as a cursory glance on Grant's part became a wide-eyed stare, then a focused and concentrated scan that took in each aspect of the map.

"Do you know who's divisions these are?"

Captain Gordon nodded then crammed his eyes shut against the unexpected burst of light and pain, and lightly cradled his bandaged head in his hand until the explosions died down a little. "Second map there." He managed. "South to North is Barton, Reynolds, Cumming and Lee, under Stevenson. Moore under Bowen. Hobert, Shoup, Baldwin and Cockrell under Forney and Vaughn under M. L. Smith."

"And in command of all forces?"

"Pemberton, as you suspected, sir."

"All safely entrenched, well supplied and with the full support of the people of Vicksburg, I have no doubt." Grant said, matter-of-factly, his voice distracted as he studied the map. "These other maps?"

"The city of Vicksburg and the land to the west including the Mississippi."

"Pemberton's numbers?"

"Not much more than 18,000, sir." Arte reported, his voice dropping in volume as he took the last of the brandy, his energy waning.

"But very well entrenched." Without turning his focus away from the maps before him General Grant stood from his chair, maintaining his slightly hunched position as he scooped up the other two, spreading those over the writing desk as well.

Arte watched the general as he worked, putting the empty brandy snifter on the now barren card table before slowly laying back down on the cot, his mind drifting.

No man in the ranks ever truly wished to be a general, and very few ever wished to be a captain. A sergeant had the perfect balance of responsibilities and duties. On the battlefield he urged his men to move with haste, diligence and accuracy, but wasn't required to strategize. It wasn't the Sergeant that sent men to their doom, but the Generals and the Colonels. Sergeants were to do or die, along with the men, down in the muck from which they had only recently risen.

A sergeant didn't write heartfelt letters home to the mother's and wives of the dead. That was for the Captains and the other commissioned officers. Sergeants only trained their men to stay alive, so as to save the General the waste of valuable ink and paper.

He had liked being a sergeant.

He had thought that becoming a spy might be better. He'd been wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Note To The Reader:** I have used the term 'negro' to describe and refer to persons of the African-American persuasion. Primarily I use it because it was the appropriate and polite term used in the period between the end of the American Civil War, almost to and including the civil rights movements a hundred years later. Other terms, the least offensive of which is 'colored', were considered uncouth and inappropriate especially in the north.

The term African-American did not come into use until well into the 20th century.

IIOYYCKMA

* * *

October 21st, 1874

The White House

Washington, D.C.

"And what was the response from Niagara?" President Grant asked over his shoulder, marking a swift and steady pace through the halls of the White House that Gordon and West were forced to match.

Jim answered without hesitation. "Frederick's train arrived at 0600 hours in Ontario, Canada. The agents who were aboard reported no foul play during the trip, then departed. Frederick himself responded to our telegraphs with one of his own declaring that all had gone well."

"Mr. Gordon?"

"Sir, while it is possible that this is some elaborate ruse, it seems unlikely. The man sending the threatening notes has made it clear all along _what_ he intends to do and has given reasons, if vague ones, as to why. Any subterfuge that might convince you that your son was _out _of danger neither fits his _modus operandi_ nor his mentality."

"So we may assume that Frederick and Ida are out of harm's way."

"We may." Jim answered, glancing across to his partner as they traded one hallway for another, curving through the expanse of marble and stone before they started up a stair case.

"And we still have no word from Columbia?"

"No sir." Jim answered again, both West and Gordon nearly overshooting the President as he paused on the stairs, one of Grant's hands going out to clutch at the railing for a moment.

"I want you men there, now. I want you at Columbia University, I want my boy found, and returned to the White House until this mess has been sorted out." President Grant's voice was low and stern, and barely controlled, if the violent tremble in the man's free hand was any indication.

"Sir," Arte said after a moment, compassion entering his voice. "One of us at the very least should remain here."

Gordon knew the moment he said it that it had been a foolish and futile suggestion and he straightened, closing his mouth and looking to his partner.

"We'll keep you informed, Mr. President." Jim said quietly before both men silently slipped back down the stairs and into a carriage waiting outside the East entrance.

* * *

The trip to Columbia University's Law School, located on New York's Manhattan Island, was short. From the train station the two Secret Service Agents took a hack to the gothic revival style campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue. It had only been a day since the bright, fall wedding in Chicago, but Arte felt as though they were a world away.

The collection of gray, domineering buildings were dreary. The skies rainy and subdued, with damp leaves caking the sidewalks and the drains in the streets. Only a handful of negro ground's workers were on the campus, the damp Sunday afternoon a perfect time for sleeping in, or study, or finding a quiet corner with a young lady from the seminary uptown.

The fledgling fraternity to which Ulysses S. Grant's second son, Ulysses S. Grant Jr. belonged, knew him only as Buck Grist. The name change was an intentional opportunity that Buck had taken, seeking to mingle unobtrusively with his peers, even if those peers were as pedigreed as he. The well-appointed brown stone that the fraternity occupied smelled, looked and sounded very much like any home suddenly under the care of un-mothered and un-wed twenty-something men. The environment had brought a curious sort of smile to Jim's lips and a repulsed sneer to Arte's.

They traveled through the quiet halls of the first floor of the building finding it almost entirely deserted but for a young man sitting studiously in a high-backed chair in the reception room, his back to the doorway into which Arte and Jim leaned. At first they could only see a puff of incandescent white smoke rising from the chair every few minutes, then a slender and pale hand appeared from behind the chair hovering over the side table, an elongated, ornate pipe ending in a bowl shape, tipping from his fingers like a delicately balanced decanter.

The room stank from the smoke the boy, whoever he was, had been enjoying, and it didn't take long for both men to recognize it. "Opium." Arte said to his partner's nod. "Charming."

They continued through the house finding the other open rooms deserted, including the upstairs bedroom that had to have belonged to Buck. The door was ajar, the room looking no more ransacked than it might be at the hands of a college student desperately seeking out a lost text-book while late for a class. There was no way to know if anything was missing. Whether the boy had left on his own for a late afternoon lunch, or been kidnapped the night before.

Lighting one of the gas lamps on the wall Arte moved to the dark Maplewood desk near the window, rifling through the papers that littered its surface. West moved to the chest of drawers, then the bureau, finding enough clothing in each to dissuade him from presuming Buck had taken a planned trip.

When he moved to the closet the door was tightly closed, the hinges straining against something weighty. Prepared for anything, or anyone, to jump out at him when he opened the door Jim turned the handle then hopped back, and was surprised to find a second bed tipped up on its head fitted precisely to the dimensions of the small space. As the door opened the bed swung down, its momentum hindered by a gear and pulley system also hidden inside the closet.

The creak of the mechanism distracted Arte from his search and he blinked at the second bed.

"Does he have a roommate?" Arte asked, glancing around the room for further evidence of the same.

Jim shook his head, noting that the bed had been put away into its hiding place in the closet complete with linens and blankets. "He isn't supposed to."

"Perhaps that's meant for unannounced visitors."

Jim seemed lost in thought for a moment before he said, "The opium smoker?"

Arte considered the idea. All of the unlocked rooms in the house had been common rooms geared for study or dining, bathing or gathering. None of the bedrooms had been unlocked but this one. "Makes sense." He agreed, turning back to the desk and pulling out the bottom most drawer where he found a stack of letters. Tipping the string bound bundle to his nose Arte smirked, then perched on the edge of the desk and read the return address on the first envelope. "From a Miss Fannie Josephine Chaffee, to Mr. Buck Grant..." He said amused, before catching his partner's glance.

"I had forgotten about that..." Jim said, a slight growl in his tone. Both men had, not that long ago, run into the father of Miss Fannie Chaffee with mildly disastrous results.

"That shall be one wedding I have no desire to attend..." Arte muttered before he jerked open the only drawer he hadn't yet checked. More papers lay inside, loosely stacked. He had just dipped his hand into the mess when a deep rumble sounded at the door. Arte was surprised to look up and find that the sound had come from human vocal chords.

A towering, powerfully built negro man, who had to be in his sixties at least, stood in the door looking over the two Secret Service Agents, openly suspicious.

"Can I help you gentlemens?" The man asked, his voice a natural basso, grumbling like a low steady roll of thunder. Giant fists closed around the warped wooden handle of a broom. Arte was hard pressed to think of another man that he had met, other than perhaps Voltaire, that was more intimidating while standing casually in a doorway.

"We're friends of Buck's." Jim said after a moment, popping a friendly smile on his face. Arte could sense his partner sizing up the man in the doorway.

Muscular, and likely at some point in his youth well accustomed to extreme labor, the man appeared to have grown until he fit the task to which he was assigned then stopped there. His shoulders were broad, his forearms hardened like steel, his chest deep. He stood straight with no sign of a stoop or lean, and were it not for the salt and pepper spritz of hair on the man's head, West might have considered him equal in age. "Do you...work for the university?" Jim asked after a moment.

The man in the doorway considered the question and the one asking it before he shook his head. "No..I works for the boys here." He said, his speech pattern lending further to his age, his slow drawl indicating that he had probably been a slave over a dozen years ago, somewhere in the south.

"You wouldn't happen to know where Buck is?" Arte asked, watching as the hands of the giant man creaked shut around the suffering broom handle then released again.

"Boys is gone from the house by ten most mornin's." The man said. "What you say your names was?"

"I'm James West and this is my p-"

"Professor...I'm a professor here at the university. Buck told me that he left a book that he had borrowed from me somewhere here in the room and I need it...for a class tomorrow. Thought I would help myself to it." Arte said, smiling before he snatched up the first book he saw.

Arte couldn't read the face of the man in the doorway, the dreary dark of the day lending little natural light to the hallway in which the man stood, masking his reaction further.

"Don't make a mess, s'all." The man said finally, before dropping back out of the door. Seconds later Jim and Arte could hear the creak of hinges down the hall, and then the walls themselves seemed to groan as the man climbed a hidden set of stairs, probably leading to servant's quarters in the attic.

Jim moved to the door of the room, double checking that the hall was clear before he turned to watch Arte leaf through the papers he had just pulled from the desk.

"What have you got there, Professor Gordon?" Jim asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Hmm? Oh." Arte flipped through the parchments full of chicken scratches, realizing that most of what he was looking at was a mirror image of something else. "Blotting papers and...nothing."

West and Gordon stood for a moment listening to the hiss of the gas lamp and scanning the confusing mess strewn over the floor.

"You don't suppose our opium addict will have anything to say, do you?" Arte asked.

"That would depend on how persuasive I decide to be..." Jim said with a slow and deadly smile.

Arte raised his brow then followed his partner back down the stairs.

* * *

December 31st, 1862

New Year's Eve Morning

General Grant's Headquarters

Mississippi

"Captain Gordon!" The 22-year-old aide-de-camp splashed his way through the hardening mud between tents, turning a corner too sharply and nearly careening into a crowd of Sergeants trying to enjoy a last cup of coffee before the morning's duties had to be tended to. They sneered at the obnoxiously well-kempt Lieutenant barely dragging their fingers to their caps in mocked salutes. The aide-de-camp seemed oblivious to the disrespect, more concerned at the splash of coffee on his uniform tunic. He threw a gloved hand up in his own hasty response before taking off again. "Captain Gordon!?"

Ahead of him the Lieutenant could see his target, moving back and forth between a gap in tents wearing an oversized brown wool greatcoat and a threadbare and patched butternut uniform. His head still bandaged, recently clean-shaven but for the mustache, dark eyes flashing, irked, under the brim of a light tan forage cap. He had been standing beside a hastily saddled horse for the past hour, waiting.

The Lieutenant had been ordered to make his delivery in person and with haste, before returning to General Grant for further instructions. The young man knew that the camped armies would be given the order soon to move out, and that long weary days of marching would follow. The weather was not likely to cooperate for long and sending Captain Gordon on his way as quickly as possible was vital to their success.

The Lieutenant once more broke into a run, this time awkwardly avoiding falling headfirst into a table he hadn't expected to find between two wall tents. He managed to twist around the obstacle, high-stepping over the crossed lines keeping the tents taught and upright, before he came to poised attention in front of the Captain.

"Sir, the items you requested." The Lieutenant stated, only recently promoted to his position, his outstretched hand holding a burlap sack that swung heavily with the weight of over a hundred dollars in gold and silver, amongst other things.

Arte looked over the young man carefully. He might have first accused the fresh-faced, blue-eyed kid of being green, nothing more than the child of a rich man in the north, given a commission straight out of West Point. But the kid had talent, if his acrobatics in getting there had been any indication. And Arte could sense the young soldier had seen action.

"At ease, Lieutenant, what's your name?" Arte asked, taking the bag from the man's hand and looking through its contents.

"West, sir." The young man responded, slipping his gauntlet style gloves behind his back and opening his stance to shoulder width. The position dropped the man's height about an inch, making Arte realize just how compact the kid was. Very physically capable, at ease in his own body, and Arte imagined a powerful fighting force when put to the test.

"Did General Grant send any further instructions?" He asked, closing the bag.

"None sir, but that you should take all caution in returning to your duties. And he wished to remind you of your extreme value to this campaign."

Arte didn't know how many times Grant had tried to apologize for the injuries the captain had sustained at the hands of the pickets. Each time, Gordon, uncomfortable with the memories, had changed the subject. He wasn't there to be friendly with Grant, he had finally decided, he was there to do his duty, be paid the exorbitant sum promised, and get the heck out of the army all together.

That was the con man's way, and he had decided, was probably the best way for a spy too.

Frankly, Grant hovering by his bedside for two days had confused the captain. He wasn't accustomed to that sort of relationship. He'd spent too much time at the periphery of this war to have been included in the brotherly camaraderie that some of the other non-commissioned officers in his old regiment had enjoyed. In the artillery the friendships began when the bottle was uncorked in the evening and ended when the next morning dawned. Then it was back to the front where any one of them could be dead before the next bottle could be opened. Why put effort into lasting friendships that would only end prematurely?

He was as anxious to leave camp to avoid any more of Grant's apologies, as he was to get back to Vicksburg and establish himself with the enemy. This wasn't to be an overnight trip anymore, nor a simple reconnaissance. He was now being sent to Vicksburg to stay.

Until Grant could get word to him that they had reached the position from which the Union army would attack, Arte was to remain, infiltrate, report when he could, and if possible, sabotage.

"He didn't say who my contact would be?" Arte asked, watching the blank expression on the Lieutenant's face.

It was dangerous. More dangerous than a jaunt on the stage, or a con against a humorless and vengeful mark. In someone's history book he might be labeled as a hero in the future. In another he would be a vile traitor.

"Very well. Send the General my regards." Arte said finally, waiting until the Lieutenant had saluted and turned away before he stuffed the bag into the worn saddle bags on his horse.

They were confederate issue, old, battle-scarred, and probably removed from a dead animal on some distant battlefield. The greatcoat and uniform he wore had also come from a soldier no longer capable of fighting for his banner. The little blood that had been on the uniform had been washed out, and what remained was plausible, Arte reasoned, given his head injury.

Mounting, the captain directed his animal past the last few tents before he rode through the pickets and was once more in Confederate territory. He kicked his animal to a trot, then a full-out gallop putting as much distance between himself and the camp as possible, running his horse at top speed for twenty minutes before he slacked.

He left the main road then, constantly checking over his shoulder and along the periphery of his vision. Logic dictated that he had to be alone with most of the farms in the area asleep for the winter, the houses set well back away from the road he had been traveling on.

The tension in his shoulders and neck had awakened the headache that had finally dulled after three days of pounding and he forced himself to relax a little.

He was unarmed, per his charade, and far enough away from the Union camp now that his cover story would be believable if he was discovered prematurely.

An escaped prisoner from the north, narrowly skirting Grant's army after following the path of destruction for several days. It was in the midst of this destruction that he would claim to have swapped out his prison tattered uniform for the greatcoat and butternut, stolen off the body of a dead comrade. Now, wounded after an unfortunate encounter, he was on his way home to Louisiana via Vicksburg.

Claiming that he had been a Louisiana Tiger would save him from having to prove his identity to any Mississippi war official. His county of registry and birth had been picked out of a hat, literally, taken from a piece of wax covered paper tucked into the hat band of a Tiger that had been captured days before Arte had been dragged into Grant's camp. The name of the young man it had belonged to, along with his home address and unit had been written on the paper in case of his untimely demise.

A part of Arte despised overtaking the man's life in that way, the rest of him understood the necessity, and appreciated that the authenticity of the information would probably help keep him alive.

The head injury, the concussion it had caused, and the scar that it would leave behind would be his greatest ally, however.

Grant had been hesitant to explain what he had meant when he had said that it was his orders that had caused Arte to come to harm. When he finally shared with Gordon the order that he had sent out to all sentries, accusing all Jewish merchants in the area of being war profiteers, smuggling cotton, and declaring them banned from any town under his control, the captain began to understand.

"It was an order made in error, in the midst of my anger." Grant admitted quietly. "The south profits every time a smuggler transports cotton to the north. Northern markets are desperate for it and will pay top dollar. The merchants will only accept hard coins in return, and all that money goes right back into the coffers of the rebellion, fueling it. Dragging on this war. Blood money." The General's bitter words had tumbled out over the dinner table they had shared the evening Gordon and Grant had spent planning his next mission.

Arte could hear them now just as clearly, could see the fiery passion in Grant's eyes, the fist clenched tight on the table top. Clearly the issue had been even more personal than the general would ever willingly admit, but Arte hadn't pressed.

"I never intended for my men to attack anyone, or to mistreat them. They took martial law into their own hands and corrupted it, and those men will be reprimanded harshly." Grant had promised before falling silent, glaring morosely into a cup of cold coffee.

The next day the General had a new aide-de-camp, the young West, and Arte was too engrossed in collecting his supplies to notice what became of the pickets.

It mattered even less, now, he thought, his eyes scanning the horizon. The heavy clouds that had been threatening most of the morning were now darker and more menacing. He despised the idea of yet another long trip, drenched by rain. He dismounted long enough to pull his slicker from the saddle bags, slipping the sheet of tar soaked canvas over his head before he continued down the road.

An hour later the storm broke overhead.

Ice cold wind and rain thrashed at him, turning the road into a torrent of mud and scattered hail. Lightning barked overhead reaching with crone-ish fingers toward anything standing tall against the horizon. The horse skittered at every crash of thunder, forcing Gordon to focus entirely on keeping the animal firmly between his knees until he could find shelter.

A silo with a lean-to attached to it presented itself in a timely fashion. Arte was able to get himself and the horse under the slate roof before the storm grew even worse, the lightning coming so frequently that the light show chased the shadows away entirely. The road was lit like a bright stage for almost an hour, prompting Arte to remember a story about the Greeks that he had learned as a child. He wondered who had angered Zeus this time, and what the man had done to deserve so violent a retribution.

Three days later Arte realized that the offending party had to have been himself. The first storm had left behind minor damage, lightning-struck trees and a cold snap that left frost on the ground for two days.

The second storm came up unannounced and from behind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning to the reader: **The following chapters contain honest and moderately graphic depictions of the use, and abuse, of morphine.

* * *

October, 1874

Manhattan, New York City

The School of Law, Columbia University

Jim and Arte sat dejected on the steps to the frat house late that afternoon. The rain had finally pushed on, leaving them with a chilly, overcast fall day that promised only to worsen before night.

Jim sat with his right elbow balanced on his knee, his chin in his hand, his hat pushed back on his head, trying to make sense of what little they had gotten out of Buck's opium-smoking part-time roommate.

The conversation had started slowly, especially as the nearly unconscious individual didn't notice that he had callers until Jim leaned down over the front of the high back chair and flicked a fingernail against the boy's forehead.

Even that had barely roused a reaction. It wasn't until Arte had located a pitcher of water and Jim had taken the boy's pipe away that they finally had some assurance of his undivided attention.

The rest of the afternoon's activities had involved a great deal of whining, wetting and re-wetting and the following clues:

-Buck was gone.

-He had been gone all weekend.

-Buck hadn't mentioned anything about where he was going but he had to have known _that_ he was going because he had mentioned to his friend, he'd called himself Lyle, that his bed would be free.

-Buck had been planning to return. Lyle remembered vaguely that Buck had said the bed would only be free until Monday night.

-And that said opium-laced Lyle had come to Buck's to sober up, and dry out after several weeks lost in poppy dens in Chinatown. That plan, clearly, hadn't worked.

Sitting beside Jim West, Artemus Gordon had reclined against the steps behind him, propped on his elbows, twirling through his fingers the opium pipe they had confiscated from Lyle before putting him to bed.

Jim leaned forward, resting both his elbows against his knees and looked over his shoulder at the man dressed in dark violet. "You know it's hard for me to comprehend this, but you've been quiet for almost an hour now."

"Hmm?" Arte asked, then briefly smiled at his partner, his face quickly returning to its previously pensive state. "Fear not, James my boy, tis only a dramatic pause. A favorite amongst actors." Arte lifted the pipe in his hand, studying it sternly for a moment before he said, "Our inebriated friend in there has reminded me of a demon I once faced long ago." He said, his normally bright brown eyes darkening.

"Opium...?" Jim asked, surprised, leaning back so that he could take the pipe from his partner, sniffing at the cold mouth of the glass tube, and turning the fine example of delicate craftsmanship in his hands.

"An opiate, a derivative. That ol' Lucifer Laudanum. Well...more specifically morphine I guess."

Jim studied his partner, knowing that to anyone else, Arte would seem fine, unflappable, maybe a little tired in that moment. But the long silence had already spoken volumes to him.

Arte had been stuck somewhere in the past, lost in memories that were powerful, likely painful, and that had probably never before been shared with anyone. Little enough about Arte's past had been shared with West.

He easily recalled the first time he remembered meeting his partner, after the siege on Vicksburg had been lifted.

The final fight had been a melee of men and explosions and dust and fire. Jim had been caught up in a hand-to-hand skirmish after delivering some orders to one of Grant's colonels, when he noticed a man riding out of the fog of battle on a black horse, looking so much like General Grant that Jim, as his aide-de-camp had immediately run to him. He had seen the blood soaking the man's uniform and for a terrible moment had thought that he had failed his commanding officer, and that General Grant, the mastermind behind the fall of Vicksburg, had been fatally wounded.

When the man turned out to be a Captain Artemus Gordon, and in fact not wounded, but covered in the blood of another, James had decked him. After he had cooled down and finally located the missing General he had realized that he had punched a superior officer and for four days waited with gritted teeth for the court martial he was certain was due.

When he next met the Captain he was relieved to the find the man not only out of uniform, but in good humor, apparently finding the incident to be hilariously funny.

Jim, still young, but learning quickly, found he liked Gordon. When the two had been assigned together years later, Jim would have had it no other way. He'd been learning about the man ever since, and was always surprised when a new facet came to the surface.

"You remember Vicksburg?" Arte asked suddenly.

Jim smirked and nodded. "I've been thinking about it a lot lately."

Arte read the grin on his partner's face and returned it, realizing what in particular West was grinning about. "Before that..."Arte specified, the grin slipping from his face. "Months before that I was riding towards Vicksburg with a terrible storm on my heels..."

* * *

January 3rd, 1863

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Three days into the new year, ten miles outside of Vicksburg, Captain Gordon felt the first patters of cold showers against his unprotected neck and turned in time to see a wall of rain approaching a few miles behind him.

Above the rain he could see lightning fencing through the thick clouds, and knew that this storm would be nothing like the first that he had weathered, and he kicked his horse into a frantic gallop.

The route by which he had chosen to approach Vicksburg, he knew, would be guarded, and buying his entry into the well protected city would take time and guile. But at the very least he could do his act under the shelter of a guard-house or a porch roof.

For the first two miles he thought he would beat the storm.

By the third mile he felt the heavy pounding of thunder rolling against his shoulders.

By the fourth mile his horse was trying to slow and turn off the road, dodging the large hail that had begun to fall with the rain.

By the fifth mile the animal had already bucked once, almost loosing his rider, before crow hopping a few feet then charging forward again. Arte clung to the animal desperately, glancing over his shoulder in time to realize that the heavy sack Grant had given him, containing the gold and silver, had slipped from the saddle bags and was lying in the damp road.

He needed it, he decided, more than he needed to beat the storm, and he tried to rein in the animal. The horse was terrified, beyond soothing, or his control. Arte's next best option was to dismount somehow and let the beast have its fool head.

Arte had pulled his left foot from the stirrup and was leaning his weight forward onto the pommel preparing to swing his leg over and push off. The animal sensed the change in weight and hopped again, skittering to the left.

Arte heard the weakened underbelly strap on the old Confederate saddle snap, felt the leather slide, and grabbed desperately at the animal's mane, finally upsetting the horse's balance. Man and beast went down together into the mud as lightning flashed loud and blindingly bright, striking the weathervane of a nearby farm-house.

As the thunder cracked, Arte heard something else crack. Almost all of the weight of the horse had come down against the bulk of the saddle, both landing together on his right leg. The bone bent and snapped and Arte screamed. There wasn't enough breath in his lungs to make the sudden terrible pain go away, nor to prepare him for the next jolt when the horse rolled off of him, grinding the ends of the broken bone together. The animal, of course, was unharmed.

From his right knee to his ankle, his leg was white fire and he clutched desperately at his thigh, unable to breathe, unaware of the tears streaming down his face, or the rain threatening to drown him. All he could do was cling to consciousness and ride out the pain made worse by the weight of the saddle still laying against his right leg.

Curses that he'd never heard before came flying out of his mouth minutes later, pitched at the top of his range as he damned the earth, the sky, the horse and the fates until the flood of fire and pain became a manageable torrent, only raging again when he moved, or breathed.

He sat up slowly and placed a hand on the edge of the saddle, thinking about moving it off his leg and remaining conscious at the same time, when he realized that he was no longer alone on the road.

A tiny, old, white-haired, frosty-eyed man was leaning over him spattering in a language he didn't understand. Arte remembered thinking that the man had to have been a farmer, for who else would live this far outside the city, but the old codger had been dressed in all black. Conservatively but neatly.

The old man was grabbing his arm, trying to force him to sit up, looking with concern at the dirty, rain-soaked bandage on the captain's head. Arte didn't know how to tell him that his leg was broken, or that no matter how hard the old man tugged, he wasn't going to be getting to his feet anytime soon.

He was fighting the old man's grip on the sleeve of the greatcoat when a young woman appeared on his other side. She was nineteen or twenty, no more, with long brown hair that had never seen a curl in her whole life, and hazel eyes that glowed, reflecting everything blue or green around her.

"He wants you to stand." She explained, and when Arte didn't respond she repeated it slower.

Arte realized she thought he didn't speak English and tried to pull himself out of the fog taking over his brain. "S'broken." He said, the old man's badgering slacking off a bit as the young woman responded to him in the language that only they understood, then looked back to Arte.

"What is broken?" She asked, her hands gliding down his arms, over his chest and down one leg, then the other.

When Arte hissed and stiffened, his head starting to roll, the girl pursed her lips then looked to the old man. She opened her mouth and a string of consonants and vowels that didn't belong together flew out. Arte watched her lips through the haze of pain, wanting to touch them each time they pursed. The words were fascinating, simple, and yet infinitely complicated.

"You will pass out now. We will take you inside. Fix your leg."

"What?"

"This is your bag?"

Arte tried to crane his neck, nodding absently as the young girl reached out slender fingers and hefted the wet canvas sack. He was still trying to figure out how the girl knew he was going to pass out when she moved to his broken leg, and knelt, took a breath, then put both her hands around the most swollen point and squeezed.

Right after the scream died he found she was right.

He passed out.

* * *

October, 1874

Manhattan, New York City

The School of Law, Columbia University

"I don't remember there being a Chinese doctor in Vicksburg, Arte."

"He _wasn't _a doctor, Jim. He made medicines, tinctures and herbal teas and wraps. He would collect things like bull bladders and testicles, dry them out, grind them up and make...poultices out of them."

Jim had paled a little beside him, probably looking exactly the way Arte had looked when he first figured out what was in the paste that had been smeared on his leg for two weeks.

"But it worked Jim." Arte shrugged watching as a damp, colorless leaf sank to the ground like a widow sinking to her lover's grave. Reluctant, but inevitable. "I don't know if it was the more...colorful ingredients necessarily but the poultices helped save a badly broken leg that a regular army surgeon would have, without hesitation, sawed off."

"Is this the same leg you broke that other time?"

Arte thought about it for a moment then said, "Yes, but Jim that's not the point." He thought for a moment then stood, taking the opium pipe from his partner and tossing it against the brick wall of the frat house. The delicate glass instantly shattered into countless pieces, disappearing into the thick bushes that lined the structure.

Jim stood slowly, looking to the barely visible white streak that the glass had left on the brick wall. The last of the opium residue that had been caked on the inside of the pipe.

His partner was shaking just a little. Jim couldn't tell if it was anger or fear. He studied Gordon for a second then quietly asked, "What is the point, Arte?"

Arte flattened his hands against his vest, took a deep calming breath and said, "The point is that that pipe just led us down a blind alley that we don't have time for."

In truth, what they had more of than enough of was time. Until Monday morning none of the other frat boys were likely to show up at the house, and the campus would likewise remain deserted until classes began the next day. Aside from hunting down and questioning the grounds workers who had also disappeared, they had no leads.

Save perhaps one, Jim realized. He knew that Arte needed a way out of the trip down memory lane, and Jim decided he'd found one.

"He signed his letters "MO"" Jim said. "We assume those are initials..."

"We do." Arte agreed.

"Let's check the registry. Maybe it's a student, or a professor."

"Fine..." Arte took a breath, then seemed to have a better handle on things and searched the collection of buildings briefly. "And where do we think we'll find the registry?"

Both men turned away from one another, each searching his own side of the campus in one long sweeping gaze before they once more met in the middle, eyeing the tallest and most imposing building of them all. In unison each gestured to the gargantuan eyesore before they strode across campus, dodging falling leaves as the wind started to pick up.

* * *

January 1863

Outside Vicksburg, Mississippi

By injecting regular, small amounts of morphine directly into his veins the father and daughter team kept the injured Captain Gordon mostly unconscious for four days. The girl, who called herself Magnolia, would explain later that it was the only way she knew of to keep him still so that his badly broken leg would heal correctly. It had been painfully stretched and manipulated back into place, then suspended over the bed he lay in, in a brace.

The few times that they allowed him to awaken had been for the purpose of getting him to drink the broth Magnolia prepared. It was during one of those periods that Magnolia introduced the third member of their household to him. Her son, she explained. His father was dead, and he was mute and deaf, but had been learning to communicate through other means. Arte barely remembered smiling at the boy before another injection of heaven crawled up his arm and he was asleep again.

The more of the drug he received, however, the more nauseated he was when he was awakened. Soon he was unable to keep down any of the food that Magnolia gave him and she, fearing for his life, and heart-broken at the lack of progress he had made, insisted that her father stop giving him the morphine altogether on his fifth day in their care.

What followed was two days of morphine withdrawal that included desperate hunger and thirst, a runny nose, tearing eyes, muscle spasms that he couldn't control, mad itching all over his body, blinding pain and the runs. He was sicker without the drug, than with it and after begging until he lost his voice and promising to do his utmost to keep the damned broth down, Magnolia's father once more filled his veins with the delightful ambrosia that made the pain go away, the itching stop, and brought blessed, blessed sleep.

Over the next week Arte did his best to keep his promise, occasionally swallowing small spoonful's of rice soaked in broth. The dosages of morphine, however, seemed to wear off faster, the withdrawal symptoms coming on sooner, and Arte begged for more, promising anything under the sun until he got it.

By the end of his second week in their care the old man's supply of the drug was running low. It was very expensive, Magnolia explained, and some of it could probably be found in Vicksburg, and more could be ordered from across the Louisiana border, but that would take time.

For Arte there was no question. He needed the morphine, he told Magnolia, until his leg healed. Once the blinding pain that was made worse by the spasms and the itching, was gone, he would withstand the withdrawal symptoms and be done with it. But until then he had to have the drug.

When Magnolia again quietly mentioned the exorbitant cost, Arte angrily demanded that Magnolia bring him the canvas bag that she had rescued from the muddy road. He dug until he found the silver, pulling out the government expense money that he had been issued. He considered its original purpose for only a second before he handed the coins to the young Chinese American woman. "Buy it with that. Buy as much as you can. Just this once, and when it's gone, it's gone." He told her.

That evening Magnolia discussed the patient's condition with her father, then set out on Arte's horse for Vicksburg, returning with as much morphine as she had been able to buy from the three apothecaries in town.

The supply lasted two and a half weeks until the day that Arte tried standing for the first time.

He'd requested an injection from the old man but neither he or his daughter had been able to find a vein that wasn't marred or completely obscured by bruises. All up and down his thin arms Arte had a patch work of black and blue, his abused veins boldly running under the bruises like train tracks going from junction to junction.

The old man was shaking his head in dismay until Magnolia said something to him in their native tongue and both disappeared from the room.

As the drug wore off, Arte's arms ached mercilessly along with everything else and he finally forced himself upright. For days both Magnolia and her father had been trying to encourage him to use a wooden crutch that now sat by his bed. He used it to get to his feet before staggering to the cabinet in which the morphine was kept, picking up a bottle and swallowing three or four teaspoons of the horribly bitter liquid.

The morphine hit his stomach like a brick, doubling him over in pain. He staggered, crying out before he fell against the cabinet, upsetting the bottles that remained and watching in terror as each one was knocked over, rolled, then fell and shattered on the floor at his feet. As the pain in his stomach subsided, everything gradually going numb again, Arte moved to the bag still sitting by his bed. With the morphine he had ingested coursing through him he could practically walk on his broken leg without feeling a thing. Calmly he dug into the cache of coins, dug out a handful of silver and gold and walked into the next room where Magnolia and the old man were still in heated discussion.

Arte stacked the coins on the mantle of the fire-place, standing still in the stunned silence before he said, "You'll need to buy more." He managed to get himself back to his bed before he passed out.

* * *

October 1874

Manhattan Island, New York City

School of Law, Columbia University

Surprisingly the administration building itself had been unlocked. Jim and Arte tugged at the heavily mantled door and it swung easily on well-tended hinges. The interior was dark both by design and as a result of inadequate lighting, but there was enough ambient light from the windows high in the vaulted ceiling for the two men to make their way down the deserted hallway of doors.

"Do you suppose they made the building deliberately depressing for the sake of the students, or the administration?" Arte asked. The architecture was magnificent truly, but seemed better fitted to a mausoleum than an office building. "I mean I would think the school would get more out of their staff if they put in a few windows, and took down a few gargoyles."

"I don't see any gargoyles, Arte."

Gordon looked up to the ceiling, half expecting to find something akin to the Sistine Chapel looming over him. "Maybe they only come out at night."

"Hey, Arte."

His partner's boots echoed across the empty hall before both men read the plaque on the door in front of which Jim stood, then bent together to look at the lock on the door. Jim slapped his partner on the shoulder then straightened, said, "Shouldn't take ya too long Arte.", and wandered to the other side of the hall where he squinted at a row of painted portraits, probably of past presidents of the university.

Arte narrowed his eyes at the younger man then muttered softly under his breath as he pulled the handful of lock picks that were hidden away in various parts of every suit of clothes he owned. He opened the door silently, and slipped into the room, locking the door again before he softly said, "Jim." then latched the door shut.

From the other side of the door he heard Jim's muffled voice say, "Oh, funny Arte. Real cute." The door handle rattled. "It's locked again, Arte."

"Shouldn't take you too long, Jim." Arte sang quietly before he moved into the room that had been labeled 'records'. The walls were lined with ornately hand carved filing cabinets that stretched all the way to the ceiling, at least three feet above Gordon's head. A rolling ladder was attached to each set of cabinets to resolve the height issue and to Gordon's relief each of the drawers were clearly labeled.

A second later the door opened and Jim ducked into the room, tucking his lock picks back into his lapel, muttering himself now. Arte waited for his partner to adjust to the darkness of the room before he went to a cluttered desk in the middle of the open space, finding an oil lantern. The base of the lantern was a heavy silver bowl that contained matches, the rim a roughened edge on which to strike them.

"What will they think of next?" Arte muttered before he went to the sole window in the room and pulled the shades closed tightly. Behind him he heard a match flare and scanned the rest of the filing cabinets as light filtered into the space. From where he stood he could see the drawers marked 'staff', with the alphabet descending in groups from top to bottom. Another set of cabinets were labeled 'faculty', 'funds', 'building permits' etc.

"I'll take the students." Jim said from across the room, already climbing halfway up one of the rolling ladders.

"Alright..." Arte said, craning his neck until he spotted the drawer marked 'Staff M-P' and started to climb.

He was almost to the drawer when he heard a distinct, feminine giggle coming from the hall. A moment later Jim heard the scrape of a key in the lock of the door.

"The lantern!?" Jim whispered loudly, and Artie scrambled back down his ladder, blowing out the lantern before he ducked into the voluminous curtains hanging in front of the window. In the sudden dark he didn't have time to see where Jim had gone.

The door opened, two voices laughing, gasping and shushing one another.

"Wilbur! This is the records room. We're not allowed in here on the weekends." The young lady tittered, cloth moving against cloth before she moaned softly, a laugh bubbling up from behind closed...or perhaps engaged, lips.

"Come now Jezebel, don't tell me you agreed to go riding with me all alone on a Sunday afternoon, _just _to go _riding_."

"Well..." More cloth rustling, then something was unsettled on the desk, clattering against the wood surface. "No, Wilbur. But...isn't there a better place for...you know...this sort of thing."

Something else rattled on the desk, rolling around for a few seconds, before a hand stopped it. "It's more exciting here, don't you think?" Wilbur answered, his voice shifting now in time with the movement of cloth and something...coins?...dropping onto the surface of the desk.

Jezebel giggled, once again through closed lips, then the rolling, rattling sound happened once, twice, then more coins. Jezebel's delighted laugh and Wilbur moaning.

It took Arte a few more minutes before he finally understood what was happening and he stepped out from behind the curtains and marched toward the desk, startling a shriek out of Jezebel who had shed her hat and gloves and had loosened at least six or seven buttons on the top of her gown. Wilbur, who at Arte's appearance immediately hid behind the young lady, had on only his undershirt and shorts. Arte looked to the pair of dice laying on the desk, the coins that each had laid down, Jezebel obviously possessing more money than Wilbur as she had chosen to pay her losses that way in lieu of further undressing, then lit a match and with it the lantern.

"Put your clothes on..." Arte said, pointing at the cowering college student. "And you...you're the..."

"S-st-stenographer..?" Jezebel stuttered. Up until Arte had lit the match she had been desperately holding the top of her dress together. Her fingers had started to slip in the light, then fell away completely when Jim startled both of them by dropping down from his ladder.

"What are you a...c-couple of peeping Toms?" Wilbur demanded, his voice squeaking as he struggled to pull his pants up, fastening them somehow despite the fact that they were inside out.

Arte pursed his lips and shook his head. From behind them Jim said, "Campus security. We'd been informed that you, Wilbur, have been using this room for...nefarious purposes. Decided we'd lay a trap."

At this admission Jezebel turned glaring eyes on Wilbur, squeaked as her mouth flew open, then slapped the young man across the face, cutting him off mid-protest before she stormed out of the room.

Working his jaw against the reddened swelling on his cheek the young man gathered his possessions from the desk, draped his shirt and coat over his arm and quietly and slunk out of the room.

Arte shook his head, baffled. "Unbelievable..." He muttered, before he looked at his partner, caught the flush rising to Jim's cheeks and started to smile despite himself.

Jim began to laugh, the action soon becoming a breath-taking spectacle that had him in stitches on the floor. Arte had no choice but to join him. It took them a good ten minutes before they were able to compose themselves enough to safely climb the ladders once more.

Even then their search was interrupted every few minutes when Jim would giggle and say, "Peeping toms..."


	5. Chapter 5

The following morning was sunny, crisp and breezy. James West, dressed as a typical student of law, his hair combed in such a way that made him look, if possible, even younger than he usually did, made his way from class to class, his memorized list of student names, ages and descriptions guiding him through the suddenly boisterous and alive campus.

The evening's exhausting search had provided the names of 10 students that either had the initials MO or OM, the names of 2 staff members, and 3 professors. These fifteen had become their primary suspects and while Arte infiltrated the faculty and staff with a disguise that he hadn't bothered to share with West, Jim worked his way into the leagues of studious, future legal minds.

None of the ten students had been members of Buck's fraternity, but almost all admitted to knowing the boy at least by sight. Some thought he came from a wealthy family out west somewhere, Missouri perhaps, based on his accent. Others were convinced that Buck's family home had to be closer, citing times that Buck had declared he was making an impromptu trip home, indicating that it would only take a few hours. None of them had seen Buck since their last class together. For some that meant Thursday, and others Friday.

Jim had finally narrowed down the last sighting of Buck Grant to Friday evening around 7pm when he noticed the dignified figure of a Supreme Court judge walking amongst a gaggle of faculty members like the Queen of England, pursued by her advisors. He just barely caught the wink before Arte disappeared around the corner of a building, the professors in tow like rats following a pied piper. Even the crowd of students he'd been talking to shifted their attention, ducking their heads to catch another glimpse of the robed and bespectacled figure leading the pack of so-called leaders. When one of the students turned to Jim and asked, "Who was that?" West shrugged.

"Probably one of those big wigs from Washington..." He said, smirking. To his surprise half of the students quickly walked away, following Arte's trail.

'Like flies,' Jim thought.

"Say, why is it you're so interested in Buck Grist?" One of the remaining students asked. His name hadn't been on their list, and Jim just barely remembered it beginning with a C.

"I'm a friend of his. From back home." Jim said, smiling magnanimously. "We've corresponded many times about my coming out to see his stomping grounds and I finally found the time...but not him."

Despite his most winning smile the student, Christoff...Christian...he couldn't remember, retained the suspicious look that only changed when the clock tower chimed the hour and the student...Charles? Chauncey? Chuck...whoever, declared that he had a class and departed.

The remaining three students on his list hadn't been in the classes they were supposed to have been attending. Jim hadn't been able to come up with a way to ask about the students without appearing overly nosey. The more he thought about it, the missing students _were_ more suspicious than those attending scheduled classes and Jim headed back for the registry, thinking that if either Wilbur or Jezebel were in the room he could probably bluff his way back into the files.

He was almost to the administration building, walking past Buck's fraternity, when he caught a whiff of smoke in the air.

Wood smoke, especially on a day as brisk as it was, wasn't uncommon, but what Jim smelled wasn't just wood.

War had taught him that everything burned differently, hotter, faster, slower, and the smoke changed with the fuel. When anything organic was set on fire, animal or plant, everything but the oils would be turned to ash. What remained boiled, becoming thick pungent smoke that would cling to every surface in its path. The slower the fire, the more the smoke and the thicker the smell. Bodies, for example, had to be burned fast and hot, and the smell of the smoke was unmistakable. Clothing, too, had to be placed on a fast fire or it would smolder and smoke, singeing but not destroying the article.

The smoke billowing from the tin smoke stack at the peak of the fraternity house was thick and black, and smelled of burning wood, wool and kerosene. Having been inside the building Jim knew that the fire-place had a traditional brick flue, and could see light colored wood smoke filtering from it on the west end of the building. The tin stack had to belong to the caretaker, the old negro man he and Arte had encountered the night before.

The smoke was too damning to ignore and Jim found himself moving across the street even before he had fully made the decision to investigate. As it had been on Sunday, the door to the frat house was open and unlocked. The halls were busier with the sounds of student voices coming from the main reception room and some of the bedrooms. Jim loped up the stairs, pausing at the second floor landing to search the walls. Somewhere there had to be a lever or catch that would open the panel the caretaker had to have used to get to the attic.

He had stopped in front of Buck's still deserted room when a section of wall near the front of the building opened, the same momentous negro ducking through the aperture and immediately fixing his gaze on West.

Jim turned casually where he stood, facing the man as he leaned back against the door jamb.

"That professor forget another book?" The man's face showed a little irritation this time, for a mere second, then slipped back into the dull compliant look he'd exhibited the first time they'd met.

Jim had gotten the impression the day before that the 'dumb slave turned freedman worker' bit was a charade, and he felt even more confident of it now.

"No..._I_ forgot something." Jim said, glancing into the empty room and deciding to test a theory. "You see, I had noticed it there with Buck's other clothes the night before but it was so dark in the room, even with that lamp lit, I guess I didn't really realize what I was looking at."

West smiled, waited and watched as the big man lifted his chin, struggling to keep the lost and unconcerned look on his face.

"I happened to be walking by the house just now and I smelled something peculiar, and familiar, coming out of your smoke stack." Jim raised a finger, pointing generally to the ceiling over their heads, pushing away from the door.

"I just burns the trash up dere. Dese boys always leavin' trash around." The big man tried smiling this time, like a doting father, but the expression fell flat as Jim took a step or two closer. "I's always findin' ol' rags sittin' around. Can't leave them kerosene soaked rags. Start a fire."

"Kerosene soaked rags..." Jim said, spreading his hands as he took another step. "For all the oil removal these future lawyers are doing? Or have they got their own incendiary factory in the back?"

"I'm just the care taker-"

"What is your name by the way, I can't seem to remember you introducing yourself."

"The boys jes' call me...Papa."

Jim felt it in his chest, the switch that always flipped. The adrenaline rush that always kicked in right before the other guy was pushed to make a decision between running away and fighting. As soon as the switch was flipped he could feel his senses expanding. He could suddenly hear more, see more, smell more. His muscles buzzed with readiness, and underlying it all, under all the confidence of past fights won, was the same old fear. The knowledge that eventually he was going to lose. The day he didn't feel that fear would be the day he would start considering retirement.

But he felt it today, plenty.

"Now, suppose I go downstairs and ask those boys gathered around the mantle what they think about their...'Papa'. How many are gonna wonder what I'm talking about?"

And then 'Papa' made his move. The roar came barreling out of his mouth as the older man's fists rose, grabbing handfuls of Jim's jacket and vest, and lifting him clean off the floor.

West pulled up his legs and wrapped them around the big man's torso, the breadth of which was almost too great for him to lock his ankles. He'd only begun putting pressure on Papa's rib cage when the bigger man finished his charge by ramming Jim, head and shoulders, through the glass of the window that faced the top of the stairs.

Suddenly he was out in the cool bright sunlight again, his head and ears ringing. His fists desperately clawing for purchase on the big man's iron wrists. He glanced below him, watching as the shards of glass fell to the sidewalk below, scattering liked dropped icicles. Then Papa was dragging him back inside, releasing his hold on Jim's vest in favor of beating his fists against the smaller man's thighs.

Jim got the idea that he wasn't so much constricting the man's ribcage as he was simply annoying him. Especially when the large man gave up on his thighs and instead took Jim's head into his hands and started to squeeze. The pressure of the plates in West's skull suddenly being compacted together produced blinding pain, cutting off some of the circulation to his brain.

Jim released his legs, his hands supporting most of his weight as he dangled from Papa's grasp, swinging his legs back. He desperately tried to hit the button on the side of his boot before swinging his feet, point first, into Papa's stomach. The first time he hadn't managed it. The impact of his kick had only made Papa more angry and the pressure in Jim's skull increased ten fold, eliciting a strangled cry.

The second time he not only heard the hide-away blade snapping into place, but he could feel the impact as it sank into Papa's side. Only a few inches, impacting mostly muscle and fat, but enough to get the big man's attention. Some of the pressure was gone from around his skull and he gritted his teeth and struck a second time.

He was released a moment later, his boots landing square on the floor but the blood rushing to his brain robbed him temporarily of his balance. He fell sideways catching himself on the banister while he dragged in air, desperately working to clear his head.

Papa was coming to grips with the injuries Jim had inflicted, patting his hands at the blood, the pain registering on his face. Superficial wounds really, especially to someone so well muscled, but the sight of the blood appeared to have taken some of the fight out of the man.

Below on the first floor landing Jim heard a voice and looked down to see one of the male students from the reception room looking up at him, repeating something that Jim couldn't quite hear yet, in a concerned voice.

The sound of the recessed door opening snapped West's attention back to Papa and he forced himself upright and staggered down the hall catching the hidden door before it could swing shut again.

The concerned student had made it to the top of the stairs and paused, staring stunned at the broken window. When he finally turned to face Jim he was far less concerned about West's condition, in favor of his indignation at the broken window. "Who are you!?"

West's whole brain was pounding against his skull, and the oxygen he was dragging into his lungs only seemed to make it worse. He wanted nothing more than to lie down for a few minutes with something frozen over his head, but the strategist in him knew that Papa wouldn't have retreated this way only to be trapped.

"What is Papa's real name?" Jim asked the student, stalling for time, blinking any time the student's annoyed face went out of focus.

"Papa? Listen mister, you've got a great deal to clarify here, making up other-"

"The big negro, the man who looks after the house, what is his name?"

The student pursed his lips to answer, a hand vaguely pointing towards Buck's room. "You mean Grist's man?"

"Buck?"

"That old man came with Grist. Nobody knows his name."

"Do you know morse code?"

"What?"

"Get to the church bell and ring out JW...whoever responds send him here." Jim ordered then ducked into the recess in the wall.

The baffled student loudly demanded 'what' again, and Jim shouted, "Just do it!" before the door snapped shut behind him.

* * *

Spring 1863

Vicksburg, Mississippi

At the beginning of March the cold and wet hitting Mississippi was record breaking. Each morning and afternoon the storms would roll in dumping several feet of rain that would freeze over night, then thaw and dump once again the next morning. The process made traveling anywhere a treacherous prospect and brought Grant's armies to a grinding halt hundreds of miles from Vicksburg. Forced to encamp and dig in, the common sicknesses of men confined together in wet and cold weather rampaged through the General's army, slowly picking off his forces like a sniper.

His plans stalled, the General, who still hadn't heard word from Captain Gordon, had no choice but to sit, wait and stew. The waiting all but enraged him. Not a man to sit idle the General was often seen pacing his tent, stomping around his command, or would disappear into his quarters for days at a time. Grant's staff surgeon was concerned but could do or say nothing after his last confrontation with Grant had ended with the then inebriated man threatening to court-martial him if he said another word. The Surgeon hadn't feared the threat, but had taken heed of the weapon in Grant's hand at the time, wisely ducking out.

It was his learned opinion that the waiting and the solitude, without the distraction of Grant's sometimes visiting sons, created a raging sort of boredom in the man that quickly overtook his normally ironclad will, and made the bottle an irresistible attraction.

He could discuss none of this with Grant's other staff, and the man himself, when drinking, was irrational. He could only stand by and watch, and hope that he was vigilant enough to pick up the pieces before Grant's self-destruction went too far.

For Artemus Gordon the self-destruction was almost complete. As his addiction grew, so did his tolerance. With it the severity of the withdrawal symptoms worsened in between each dose, the situation spiraling wildly out of control until the day Gordon woke to find himself outside, nearly frozen to death in the arms of a tree a mile away from the small farm-house. Shaking, feverish, his face a wet, swollen mess, the skin on his broken leg and both bare feet torn, his fingertips and nails cracked from the frantic climb that had somehow deposited him where he was. Worse still, when he began to consider how he was going to get down from the tree he noticed a tiny figure huddled against the trunk.

Magnolia's little boy, nearly frozen to death. Out of his concern for the Captain the boy had followed diligently when the man started raving, running after him when Gordon tore out of the house, and spending the night beneath the tree into which he had climbed, unable to help, but unwilling to leave Arte to die.

The boy's loyalty nearly ended his short life, and sucked almost all of what was left of Arte's soul into the oblivion that was swallowing him whole. With nothing left for him but the suffering of withdrawal Arte took to the task completely. Refusing to leave the boy's side, unless the severity of the symptoms necessitated it, Gordon took no more morphine.

Instead of allowing Magnolia or her father to wean him off the drug with smaller doses he broke every bottle in the house. He would replenish the old man's supply before he left, Arte told himself, but until then he needed all temptations gone.

In the midst of the fevered dreams and the hallucinations that had already enveloped him before the withdrawal; the painful spasms, the itching, the twisting of his gut were the only real things that he could cling to. The quiet throbbing in his healing leg, that was real, so he clung to it. The raw hunger and thirst that he couldn't quench, the bony, emaciated, hollow eyed man staring at him from the mirror, those things were real, and he clung to them.

The young boy lying in the bed the captain had once occupied, fighting for his life; he was very real, and Arte prayed, as he had never prayed, that God would show mercy this once, and save the life of the boy. Even if it meant that his torture never ended, Gordon desperately begged that the boy survive.

The first warm day of March was also the first day Magnolia's son was able to sit up in bed and drink some soup. Wrapped in a blanket, trying to keep down his own bowl, Arte was a quivering, weeping mess. But he had never been so deliriously happy.

A week later, on March 19th, Arte had regained 15 of the 40lbs he'd lost. But for a residual shake in his hands, the hollow ache in his leg and the still visible track marks on his arms, Gordon felt as strong as he needed to feel, the realization of his dereliction of duty outweighing everything else.

He felt overwhelmed with shame the day he decided to leave, trying to convey his apologies to Magnolia and her father. Neither seemed angry with him, and were delighted to see him up and around. Magnolia repeatedly begged him to stay until he was stronger. Gordon was convinced that they simply didn't understand. That the language barrier kept them from comprehending the treachery, the seething, self-serving beast that had been revealed to him when the morphine stripped away the guise of humanity.

Arte wanted to run from that beast. He wanted to bury it in the past, along with the drug that had held him captive. He needed to plunge into the work he should have been doing in all that time , and beat back the still powerful pull of his addiction. The farmhouse had become a hall of horrors for him, and after awkwardly shaking Magnolia's son's still weak hand, Arte left, promising only that he would return with more morphine when he could.

When he could stand to look at a bottle of the drug without feeling disgusted and enticed all at the same time.

And when he had managed to somehow replace the money Grant had given him, most of which was now gone.

His entry into Vicksburg was flawless. His emaciated appearance, the confederate uniform hanging on him like wet laundry on a line, his strained voice and the limp all lending to a character at which the sentries did not even blink.

They looked on him with sympathy, eyed his relatively healthy horse, then told him where he could find housing and a bath. That night all Arte wanted was a drink, but he forced himself instead to drink coffee, going with his tin cup from camp fire to camp fire along the entrenched perimeter of the city gathering news of the war from the active soldiers as any returned veteran would.

By the end of the night he was desperately hungry, wired from the coffee and in pain. He happened across a sergeant who took pity on him, plunking a copper coin into his empty cup.

He looked homeless, Arte realized as he wandered away, staring at the coin. He looked desperate, homeless and worthy of pity. The sudden change in his awareness of himself terrified him, and he spent the day curled in a blanket in the stable next to his horse, watching every remembered moment of his life roll by in a slow, depressing, funeral procession.

When he finally did sleep, it was the sleep of the dead.

* * *

October 1874

Manhattan, New York City

School of Law, Columbia University

"He broke the window sir, without provocation. Further he was antagonizing Buck's house man, snooping about his room, and causing a general ruckus."

Arte followed the pontificating student up the steps, wishing he could rip the dignified beard from his face and get out of the heavy black robe that was inhibiting his every step, but his appearance had worked in his favor when Gordon jogged into the church to find the same student ringing the church bell. The future lawyer thought he was making a favorable impression on a supreme court judge, Arte figured he wouldn't burst the kid's bubble, just yet.

"And this...fellow, he went where?" Arte asked keeping the crust of Old Boston at the edge of his voice. The window opposite the stair landing was smashed, the jagged glass bearing a few smears of blood. There was more blood on the floor, some of it smudged into a partial boot print in front of Buck's room, the rest in drops heading toward the wall at the opposite end of the hall.

Even as Gordon followed the blood trail the student pointed at the small crack barely visible in the fleur-de-lis print.

The crack became a door, the door opening into a well behind the wall. Unfinished timbers, insulation and dust bordered the narrow landing before climbing a steep staircase that disappeared into the dusty attic. Arte stepped up onto the landing, careful not to upset the still wet globes of blood that climbed the steps. He thought he might have caught a wet glisten in a dark hand print near the top of the stairs, but was too far away to be sure.

"How delightful! A hidden stair." The student beamed, leaning into the small space. "My heavens, I knew this house to be old, but never dreamed of the treasures-"

Arte ripped of his wig, startling the student who choked on the rest of the gilded poetry he was preparing to impress with. Gordon handed the costume piece to the gaping collegiate, unbuttoning the heavy black robe next, hurriedly shrugging out of it as the young man stuttered, "Y-y-your honor, I...I-I-I."

"A future lawyer does not stutter," Arte began, tugging off the salt and pepper mustache which he plopped in the upturned wig that the student had managed not to drop. "He takes every move of his opponent in stride, because he has either anticipated it or, already accepted its possibility." Gordon ripped off the side burns, pulled his side arm and reached for the inner handle on the hidden door. "For a good lawyer, there are no surprises..." he said, starting to close the door behind him before he jutted his head back out and brought the flabbergasted student's attention back to the wig and hair pieces he held. "Don't lose those."

Then he was gone, cautiously taking the steep stairs two at a time until his eyes were even with the floor of the next level. The room was dimly lit compared to the second story of the frat house, a single unshielded candle burning on a desk. The desk was the only piece of furniture still whole and upright.

The rest of the room had been hit by a tornado, one likely going by the name of West. A wood and canvas cot had been tossed against the eaves and then snapped in half. The pot belly stove had been knocked slightly akilter and was churning more heat than was necessary into the small space. At the end of the narrow attic was a small circular window that had a crack in it, near the base. The rest of the space was barren, dust-covered and silent.

Arte quickly climbed the rest of the stairs, instinctively ducking his head and shoulders instead of standing straight in the cramped space. If he felt he was about to hit the overhead beams, he couldn't imagine how uncomfortable the space made the large caretaker feel. Yet this was clearly his home.

The blood trail continued through the dust, until it disappeared in the middle of the battle zone, then thickened, heading straight for a large steamer trunk shoved under the cracked window.

Something about it looked odd, and it took Arte a moment before he realized that the evidence lay in the dust. The trunk had not always been shoved under the small window. The rectangular, dust-free shape in the floor marking the original position of the trunk was several feet to the left. Arte holstered his gun and pushed the surprisingly heavy chest back into place, discovering the large hole in the floor seconds before the trunk groaned.

"Jim?"

For a moment the trunk was silent, then something knocked against the cover and the trunk said, "Ow...Arte?"

Artemus did his best not to smile, remembering a circumstance where the situation had been reversed. By the time he unlocked the trunk and got the lid open the miserably pained look on his partner's face had convinced him not to bring it up.

"You alright, James?"

West was groggy, and moving slow. The light was too dim for Arte to see if his partner was bleeding but he stood, putting his hand on Jim's elbow, waiting for West to decide how he was going to get up before he started pulling on anything that might be tender or broken.

By the time Jim climbed out of the trunk, stumbled to the desk and perched on the edge, Arte could see that his partner was relatively whole. A bloodied lip, a swelling eye. James was holding onto his head like he was afraid it would float away, but other than that he seemed fine.

"Alright, Jim, I'm going to guess here. You...were interviewing the students..."

Jim groaned, not daring to move his head, even to nod.

"And you...decided to return to the scene of the crime..." Arte paused again, this time getting a slightly less agreeable moan, but he forged ahead.

"For some reason you found the older gentleman so deeply offensive you immediately set about thoroughly trouncing him-" Arte ground to a halt when the glare Jim was giving him took on a lethal quality.

"He was burning something...wool maybe, and kerosene, in that stove over there." Jim explained, finally releasing his head and testing the swelling around his eye with his fingertips. He winced, his eyelid already starting to swell shut. "I ran into him in the hall and when I asked him his name, he claimed that the boy's called him 'Papa'." The 'p's in the final word made Jim aware of his split lip and he examined the damage there too, gingerly.

"The young man you sent to the bell tower claimed the caretaker had come _with_ Buck, and that none of the other fraternity members knew his name." Arte confirmed, wincing in sympathy for his partner.

Jim nodded. "I figured that out, about when the man was attempting to throw me out the window..." West said, around the fingers that he had put into his mouth to test the teeth under the split lip. He pulled his kerchief from his breast pocket a second later and held it against the small amount of blood rolling down his chin. For the most part the bleeding had stopped however and Jim glanced around the room for a water source.

He didn't notice at first that his partner's attention had drifted, or that in a matter of seconds the man had gone from the pink of health to a ghostly white color as he reached for a tin type photograph sitting overturned on the desk.


	6. Chapter 6

October 1874

Manhattan Island, New York

School of Law, Columbia University

There was no chair at the desk, and the stool that the caretaker used, had been tossed in the fight and lay, slightly mangled, up against the broken cot under the eaves. Arte could feel his knees giving out, and with no other recourse, he sat down slowly on the floor, clinging to the desk.

Artemus pushed one of his hands up against his forehead, his eyes fixed firmly on the photograph that he held in the other hand. The face staring up at him was a ghost from the past. Younger than he remembered, so very much younger, and far less menacing. The young man in the photograph had looked very much like his father, Arte realized, and he wondered how he hadn't made the connection before.

A moment later his hand dropped to cover his mouth as Arte closed his eyes, leaning back against the desk.

* * *

May 15th, 1863

Mississippi

Grant's army was on its way. The spring had thawed and quickly blossomed, and though it was still wet the weather had warmed. Knowing that his forces would be diminished by the rampage of illness Grant had ordered more troops early in March, and had a swelling force of 35,000 men under his command with more coming from the east.

The resurgence of action had quelled his desire to drink, and the worst of the incident had been officially buried. Later, when Vicksburg had fallen, Grant would allow the report to come to the attention of the high command. For now the attack on Vicksburg would commence as planned.

While some of Grant's forces attempted to approach the city via the Mississippi river to the west, Grant split his command into two brigades, one approaching from the north, and the other from the south-east. What he needed more than anything else was to hear from Captain Gordon, and the silence had developed a fear in the back of his mind that Gordon hadn't yet reported, because he never made it to Vicksburg alive.

On May 15th, with his armies waiting quietly several miles away from the city while his aquatic forces continued to approach via the river, Grant's pickets reported a lone, aged Chinese man requesting entrance to the camp. The man had come to offer his unique medicines and poultices to any of the troops that may be suffering, he said, and was becoming quite insistent and belligerent.

Several commissioned officers dealt with the issue, finally bringing it to the attention of the aide-de-camp, Lieutenant West. An hour later, Lieutenant West knocked on the ridge pole of Grant's tent.

"Begging the General's pardon?"

"Yes, West, what is it?"

"We've just received word, Sir. The steamboats are only a few days outside of Vicksburg. They've encountered some sniper fire, but have taken no casualties yet. They've stalled, concerned that their approach might be relayed to the forces at Vicksburg. Your response, sir?"

Grant studied the map in his head for a moment, making silent, economic calculations swiftly before he turned sharp blues eyes back to his second. "How many days exactly?"

"Two, sir."

"Very well. Tell them I will have my ground forces attack on the 19th. They are to remain in place until the 17th. They're movement on that date may distract the forces in the city long enough to give us further advantage."

"The 19th. Forgive me, General, but why wait so long?"

Grant sighed and stood, gesturing that West should lead the way from his tent, buttoning his vest as he moved out into the warm fog that had settled over the camps that morning. "The reinforcements I've ordered will be our greatest advantage but they are a week away. And...I'm still hoping to hear from Gordon, our undercover man in Vicksburg. Pemberton has to know at least something of our approach. If Pemberton knows it, Gordon must know it."

"We've already heard from Gordon." Lieutenant West said, with sudden realization, digging into his breast pocket and producing a leather wallet which he handed to the General.

"Lieutenant, at what point in this morning's conversation were you _planning_ to inform me of this?" Grant demanded, unable to hide some of the relief he felt flooding him, to know that Gordon was not only alive, but apparently still in place. He opened the wallet to find a handful of maps folded inside, along with a brief note. "Is he still in camp? Did he come himself, or send a courier."

"A courier, sir. An old Chinese man but-"

"That's not a courier." Grant grinned, slapping the young Lieutenant on the shoulder. "That's Gordon himself. Come."

But by the time Grant arrived at the picket line he was informed that the old man had left almost immediately after depositing the wallet, and a small wicker basket.

When he was presented with the basket the corporal handing it to him gave the General a sly look. Grant stared the man down until the look disappeared, and the private had nothing but military professionalism in its place. Later in his tent he opened the basket and the tiniest of amused smiles came to his lips.

A small bottle of champagne lay in the basket, Louis Eschenauer's Fine French champagne to be precise, surrounded by the colorful glass beads typical of the South's many celebrations, and a piece of a satin banner printed with gold lettering that said 'New Orleans'.

Under the bottle was a note that said, "To be opened after the fall of Vicksburg, and the end of this rebellion. AG"

Grant chuckled, feeling any remaining concern dissipate. Only the infamous scrounger, Artemus Gordon, would have managed to find a bottle of champagne from New Orleans, while still providing vital military intelligence to his commanding officer. And only Gordon could have delivered it, disguised as a Chinese gentleman.

"Lieutenant West, deliver that message to the Union forces on the Mississippi. Our first assault shall take place before daybreak on May 19th."

* * *

May 17th, 1863

Vicksburg, Mississippi

New Orléans, and its overflow of cheats, card sharks, gamblers and scoundrels had been a Godsend. Vicksburg, while it had become a military stronghold, was essentially a city without commerce. But for its citizens, and the little trade they could achieve via the Mississippi, the city was stagnate and struggling to thrive.

The morning after he awoke a stinking, retched mess in his horse's stable stall, Arte decided he had to get out of Vicksburg all together. He had to remake himself if he was going to be of any use to anyone, and that had to start with regaining the funds he had spent on the morphine, and he knew of only one way to do that.

He used the last of what gold he had to buy a new suit of clothes, a bath and a shave. The tailor selling him the clothing had been reticent to part with it until he had seen the color of the coin Arte had with him. When he left Vicksburg he had a one way ticket to New Orleans aboard an ill-used passenger train.

He wore a hunter green tail coat, with a short waist in the front and four obsidian buttons. A pale yellow shirt with ruffles down the front spilling over the trim waist of the coat, and brown and green plaid trousers over new brown boots. He'd considered a top hat, but hadn't had the funds, and went instead with a more modest wool, tall derby hat of dark brown.

Dressed as a moderately wealthy dandy Arte entered New Orleans a few days later and took it by storm. The city that had become the home of the black market, and the playground for a war-torn nation, was exactly what he had been hoping for. Methodically, almost to the point of ritualistic, he conned his way into the good graces, and arms, of a lady brothel owner, spending his days asleep in her bed, and his nights on the town earning back what he had spent, and more.

For weeks he was known as Phillipe De Montpellier, a French count sent to the South to observe the Confederates while the French government considered investing in the fledgling country. Instead, Count Montpellier had become inescapably lost, and much preferring the night life of New Orleans, to any of the other cities he had visited, he remained. Doing what the rich do best. Spending money, or at least appearing to spend money.

As the first blossoms of the spring season filled the streets of New Orleans with their beneficence Arte, reluctantly, left the welcoming arms of his red lady, bidding the brothel owner goodbye as well, before he bought his return ticket, no longer the prodigal son.

He'd planned to enjoy the champagne himself once he'd returned to Vicksburg, but rumors of Grant's army forming around the city sped up the timetable and Arte only had the time to establish a room in a boarding house in Vicksburg before he rode for the Chinaman's house, bottles of morphine carefully packed in his new saddle bags, needing to ask one more favor.

When he arrived, Magnolia at first didn't recognize him. Until he spoke, she and her son stood in the doorway guardedly, and Arte wondered how many unwelcome visitors they had had since his departure. They welcomed him warmly into their home once he was recognized however, and after he insisted that they take the morphine he had bought in New Orleans, he described to the old man, via Magnolia, what his plan was.

He needed some of the old man's clothes, he explained, and a basket. Then he wanted them to leave.

"Leave...but where would we go, Mr. Gordon?" Magnolia asked, blinking brightly at him.

"Anywhere, North, South, East, West, take your pick." Arte said. "Grant's army is coming and Vicksburg, and everything around it will be nothing more than a thousand smoldering holes in the ground within a month. You can't stay here. You aren't safe."

Arte looked to Magnolia's little boy. His coal brown eyes hadn't left Gordon's face since he walked in, and there was a quiet, proud smile on the young man's lips. "You...saved my life." Arte said. "I can hardly do less than try to save yours. Please..."

"We have no family, Mr. Gordon. No other home but this one. We must stay..."

"At the very least you can stay temporarily in Vicksburg. I have a room in a boarding house there. It's small but very near the Mississippi, and well protected. Out here.." Arte shook his head, knowing the mind of an artilleryman, knowing that the house would be the first target.

The conversation wore on until the old man finally interrupted, pointing a gnarled finger at Magnolia and slinging a firm rant of Chinese at her. Magnolia responded by closing her eyes and lowering her head in respect, and, to Arte's surprise, blushing furiously.

"What...what did he say?" Arte asked, smiling a bit when he saw that Magnolia wasn't angry or ashamed, but shyly smirking.

"He say, 'If you are to be my husband some day, I should not shame you by arguing. He say, I should do as I am told. We will do as you say.'"

"Hus- uh...husband?" For a long moment that was all Arte could manage in the way of a response.

Magnolia seemed to delight in his discomfort for a minute before she smiled and placed a gentle hand on Arte's arm. "Don't worry. He is an old man. He does not understand. We will humbly accept your hospitality."

For a brief flash, right after he heard the word husband, Arte had considered it. He had seen a picture of himself, Magnolia and the young boy in the farmhouse, as a family. As a single unit. He had imagined what it might be like to hold Magnolia, not because he couldn't stand without help, but in an embrace. He wondered what she would smell like in bed, not leaning over him while he was sick, but as lovers.

She had been nursemaid to him so long, he hadn't considered her in any other way. But her blush had spoken volumes. His hesitation had apparently also said more than he intended and now he was stuck somewhere between liking the idea, and being frightened of it.

The rest of what Magnolia said came to him slowly and he finally smiled, taking her hand and awkwardly kissing the back of it. "Good, very good. Thank you." He stuttered, then their hands parted and he asked, "How long do you need?"

"Only a few hours." Magnolia promised.

That gave Gordon enough time to ride out to where he suspected Grant's headquarters to be located, drop off his gifts and return.

By the following morning he, Magnolia and her family had returned to Vicksburg.

* * *

October 1874

Manhattan Island, New York City

School of Law, Columbia University

"Arte, what is it?"

"A mistake..." Arte said, his hand trembling against his forehead. "A giant...terrible mistake." Arte glanced at the desk, pulling open one of the drawers and peering inside, his head starting to pound. As he caught a glimpse of a stack of loose papers he set the photograph on the desk top and scrambled to his knees pulling the papers out by handfuls and piling them on the desk as well.

Jim rescued the photograph before it was buried and studied its mottled and time-worn surface. The subject was a young negro man, probably no older than Buck's age, who was seated in front of a curtain, a prop set up in a photographer's studio. Wearing a Union uniform and holding his gun by his side the young man had chosen to face the camera full on, a bright, intelligent look reflected in his eyes. He was obviously big, and well muscled, and the spitting image of his father; clearly the son of the man known to Jim as 'Papa'.

"You know this man?" Jim asked, but Arte didn't respond focused on emptying every drawer onto the top of the desk.

Pushing to his feet Gordon began to fish through the slew of papers spilling off the pockmarked, wooden surface, picking up each piece to examine it before he kept some, and discarded others onto the floor. Jim was about to ask his partner what he was searching for when the man shoved a piece of paper under his nose. "There...read that."

"Romans 12:19, Matthew 5:38, Proverbs 25:22...these are all Bible verses."

"Yes, verses that speak specifically on the subject of vengeance. You remember my saying that the man writing the threatening letters to President Grant spoke more like a prophet bringing God's wrath, than a madman."

"You think 'Papa' is MO?"

Arte went back to sorting through the papers. "I know he is."

A few minutes later Arte handed him another paper. This one had the letters of the alphabet written out in a bold steady hand, both as capitals and lowercase. Under the letters were shaky, almost illegible scrawls, attempts at mimicking the bolder hand writing. "It looks like he was learning how to write." Jim said.

Arte continued his search as he spoke."One of the things that always bothered me about the letters. The writer never had his own voice. If Miguelito Loveless, or Dr. Messenger had been behind it there would have been flare, character behind the words. Ego...but there was none with MO's letter." Arte paused, reading the slightly clearer scrawl on a scrap of paper that had been torn off another. He discarded it after a moment, then picked up the piece of paper beneath it. The mate to the first. This he handed to West. "MO always wrote precisely what he wished to convey with nothing added."

"But the first letters President Grant received were almost flawlessly scribed. This can barely be read." Jim said, gesturing with the partial paragraph that Arte had just handed him.

"Someone else could have written them for him. They were vague enough that anyone taking dictation wouldn't have immediately had their suspicion aroused."

"Arte..."

"Jim, he's the one writing these letters. I know it."

"Alright, let's suppose he is. He's accused the president of murdering his child-"

"No...no, the writer never said murder." Arte clarified, putting a finger up while he dug in his breast pocket. "He said "ended the life of my child.""

Jim leaned forward, wincing as his head throbbed, glaring as his partner drew out the original letters and spread them on the only uncovered corner of the desk, then began comparing the handwriting that had come from the desk drawers with that in the letters. As Arte fell into a focused silence Jim found himself getting more and more irritated with the older man.

"Arte.."

"I've almost got it, Jim." Arte insisted, tossing a few pages from the desk then grasping desperately at the next few pages in the pile, his head constantly bouncing back and forth between the original letters and the scrawls.

Irked Jim jerked the letters out from under Arte's hand and folded them, instead of crumbling them like he wanted to, into his pocket.

"Jim...what are you doing?"

"It's not him, Arte."

"It _has _to be!" Arte shouted in return. "He's been close to Buck Grant, 'keeping an eye' on him just as the letters said. That student said that 'Papa' had come _with_ Buck. For all we know he was Buck's personal attendant at Harvard. He would know, through Buck, what the President was doing and where. He would know to have a letter delivered to The Wanderer, instead of the Honore home while the President was in Chicago. I haven't found it yet but I know there's a link here somewhere that will connect this 'Papa's' hand writing with that of MO."

"Arte...you recognized the man in this photograph?" Jim said, once more trying to bring his partner's attention to the tintype.

When Arte didn't respond this time, Jim lurched forward and grabbed a fist full of Gordon's jacket. The move, borne of the pounding in his head that hadn't lessened, brought on a wave of pain and dizziness, and the flush of blood to his face. He swayed on his feet, suddenly unable to breathe, and could feel Arte's hands supporting him by the elbows.

"Jim...you're bad off." Arte's voice had dropped drastically in volume, tinged with guilt as he slipped Jim's arm over his shoulder.

"Nice of you to finally notice.." Jim muttered, feeling like his head was either going to implode, or take off like a hot air balloon with out him.

Walking West over to the chest that he had been stuffed into not that long ago, Arte flipped the lid closed before he dragged the chest one-handed back towards the window, helping his partner slowly sink down on it. The minute he was sure Jim was stable Arte stood and carefully unlatched the broken window, opening it. Cool air flooded the room, dispelling the boiler-room heat that Arte had managed to forget about.

Searching the room a little closer Arte could see no water basin or pitcher, or any other apparent source of water. His partner's battered eye and lip were still swelling and whatever this man 'Papa' had done to him before shoving him into the trunk, should have been his first concern.

Chasing down Papa, who had probably escaped through the hole in the floor, over which the trunk had been pulled, should have been his second concern. His obsession with his own guilt and the past. That should've have come last.

When had he stopped thinking like a Secret Service Agent, and started thinking like an angst ridden old man?

"Jim?"

"Just need a minute, Arte." West said, taking in deep lungful's of the clearing air. He hadn't noticed the smell before, and he had thought that the haze in front of his eyes was due to the injury, but now he could see the smoke drifting out the open window. Carefully turning his head he studied the pot belly stove, its sideways cant, and realized surprised that he and Arte had come dangerously close to asphyxiating on carbon monoxide. Forcing his good eye open, Jim looked up at his partner and asked, "How are you feeling?"

The question surprised Arte, especially after he thought for a moment and found that by virtue of feeling better, he had indeed been feeling worse. He too glanced in the direction that Jim had been looking and realized a second later what had almost happened. He thought of the many enemies he and his partner had made in the past three or four years, and how each of them would have finally had their prayers answered, but with no one to thank. The two agents would have done the deed to themselves. Arte shook his head, opening his mouth to respond but finding no adequate excuse.

"It's this case, Jim." He said finally, shaking his head. "I've encountered more demons from my past in one 24 hour period than...They all seem to be collecting in my head, yammering away, demanding satisfaction." Arte laughed, his features lightening a little. "I thought only a woman could distract me this way. I would have preferred a woman."

His partner was silent for a moment before he looked up, a weak but wry smile on his slightly mal-formed lips. "I thought you said there _was_ a woman."

"Hmm?"

"Magnolia..."

"Oh..." Arte thought about smiling, but couldn't quite force enough muscles into the action. "I tried to save her..." He said, turning his head to look out the window at the bright red glow of the sky. The sun starting to set.

"I'm sorry, Arte. What happened?"

Artemus shook his head and said, "What always happens in a siege. Innocent people get in the way."


	7. Chapter 7

October 1874

Manhattan, New York City

Once Jim was able to stand on his own, both men worked together to shift through the piles of papers on the desk of the man known as 'Papa', compiling enough evidence to connect his handwriting with the handwriting in the last letters. As Jim had pointed out, the first letters didn't quite match. Someone had to have written those for 'Papa', for an incentive neither could fathom. They were careful not to spend too much time in the room and before they left the frat house entirely they had carried water in pitchers up to the pot belly stove, extinguishing the smoldering ashes.

The woolen items Papa had been burning had turned into a melted, misshapen lump molded to the bottom of the stove.

A cursory investigation of the hole in the floor of Papa's attic room proved that it did indeed provide a means of escape. Arte carefully descended the ladder that presented itself, going all the way to the basement of the house where a second ladder, ascending up the coal chute, led to the street. From there he was able to follow the blood trail to the end of the alley before it disappeared.

The two Secret Service Agents returned to the train as the sun finally set, a cold nip in the air that promised more rain. Once on board Jim went into the washroom to clean his face and start applying cold compresses to the swelling. Arte sat down to contact the White House and was writing down the slew of messages that had come in their absence, long after Jim had rejoined him in the main room of the varnish car. In deference to Jim's headache, even with the encroaching darkness, neither man made the move to light the lanterns.

When the telegraph key finally stopped rattling Jim looked up from where he had reclined on the settee, a wet cloth pressed against his eye, and waited as Arte considered his jottings then summarized.

"President Grant received another letter today, which arrived this morning. It gave only a time, day and location. We can assume this is from 'Papa'..."

"Or his writing accomplice..."

"And that it is the location, or close to the location where Buck has been held. The President feels that this can no longer be considered just a threat against himself personally, but a threat against the nation. He has been speaking with the Secretary of War and the Vice President, and they have, as a result, begun drafting a policy to be used against terrorist threats..."

"Terrorist threats!?" Jim demanded, surprised, sitting up on the green velvet couch.

"I can't say I'm surprised, Jim. Grant was never a man to be toyed with, and as the leader of the nation he does have a point. Any threat against his person, is a threat against the country as a whole. We've enjoyed peace with other nations for only a short time, and we're still battling several native nations in the west. If this country is to survive, it will do so at the hands of a leader who will not give in to threats. A policy that dictates that attitude is smart."

James West watched as his partner spoke, Arte's words clear and concise, but his stature diminished, his body melting slowly back into the chair in which he sat, as if he had, at some time during the thought process, accepted defeat.

"I hope Grant isn't planning on going to this location."

"I don't intend to let him, Jim. I've disguised myself as Grant plenty of times, its only fitting that I do it this time...ironically." Switching the key to send, Arte started tapping out a message, focused on the key under his fingertips.

Jim waited, watching his partner closely, putting the cool cloth back over his eye.

When he finished, Arte snapped the key to receive and waited. The confirmation took longer than usual but apparently satisfied Gordon, because he slid the key back home, shutting the doors of the false books.

"How's the eye?"

Jim shut his good eye as he groaned, then took the cloth away. Arte grimaced for him and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Pal."

Jim waved off the apology and stood, going to the wash room to re-wet the cloth. On his way out he glanced at the decanter of brandy, considering it for a moment before he asked, "Do you want a drink?"

To his surprise, Arte said, "No! No...thank you."

Jim went back to the settee, the silence of the train, and the sounds of New York City still very much awake at sundown, filling the small compartment. He broke the hum of noise, asking, "All this has to do with the morphine doesn't it?"

Arte's brows had been furrowed, his lips set in a firm line, his face worn, before he turned a surprised look to his partner. He stood after a moment and joined West on the settee, sitting and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

He put his face in his hands and after a moment spoke through them, "You have your demons, Jim, I know. Your life before we met is as much a mystery to me, as mine is to you. Up until Vicksburg, up until that...monkey climbed on my back, I thought I knew who I was. And I might not have liked myself, but I had at least accepted what I was.

I _wasn't_ much, Jim. A sergeant in the artillery, coarse and uncouth. I had been a card shark and a con man and a two-bit actor before that. I thought I had been struggling to survive..." Arte shook his head. "I didn't know what a struggle was, I didn't know what _survival_ was until I tried to kick the morphine. When found that I couldn't do it on my own, then saw what it was doing to the people who were...only trying to help me..."

His partner grew silent and Jim watched him, waiting for him to say something more; not wanting to speak for fear that it would silence the man.

When the quiet drew longer between them Jim finally prompted. "What happened to Magnolia?"

Arte sat up and leaned against the back of the settee, letting his head settle back, staring at the ceiling of the varnish car. "She was killed, in the siege on Vicksburg."

Arte closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing quietly. He hadn't loved her, he knew that. But he had loved the idea of her. Her death had been senseless.

"After I delivered the new maps to Grant's headquarters I gathered Magnolia and her father and son, and set them up in a boarding house near the river. I wasn't aware, at the time, that Grant had forces coming up the Mississippi. After Grant's first and second attacks failed, the citizens of Vicksburg were disheartened. The damage to their town was substantial. But the troops, so well entrenched, were emboldened. They had noticed Grant on his horse several times and had challenged one another to try to kill him. There was a prize...Jim, it grew every hour, of gold and spirits and even brothel tokens that would go to the man who killed General Grant."

Arte shook his head, looking to his partner. "I had no way of warning him. I couldn't leave the city. Most of the tunnels were already rigged to be blown, and the men on the walls had heard the tunneling of the Union troops as well and were so spooked at night they would shoot at anything. I knew I couldn't get to Grant, but I could take a page from his book.

Grant had set up his armies to attack in succession, appearing to be in all places at once. I decided to do the same, on a...smaller scale."

Jim studied the sharp brown eyes of the man on whom his life had depended so frequently for the past four years, then nodded slowly. "That's why I mistook you for General Grant in the midst of the battle."

Arte smirked slightly. "After I recovered from your 'greeting' I was so entirely flattered that my disguise had worked, even to have fooled the aide-de-camp of the General himself, I didn't even think about making you face the consequences of striking a superior officer."

"You had me twisting at the end of a noose for four days, all for nothing." Jim muttered, good-naturedly.

"It wasn't intentional, Jim, believe me." Arte paused, sobering. "Magnolia had died that day. A union shell had hit the boarding house, shattering the structure around her. I had been on the Louisiana side of Vicksburg, parading as Grant and commandeering the recently raised colored troops coming up from that side.

They were green, ill-trained. Most of them were magnificent fighters but didn't care to listen to direction. Some were there to defend their country, to fight for their freedom. Many wanted only to kill, and more, to loot. Who could blame them? They had finally been given the power to act against the men who had kept them enslaved for generations. For some their spiritual training began and ended with 'an eye for an eye'.

This young man..." Arte pulled the photo from his pocket and slowly turned it over to his partner. "He was smart, Jim. He had a smart mouth, a quick wit, and you could see that it had frequently gotten him into trouble. He was a leader in the sense that he didn't care what others said or did.

Because he sought the vengeance that the rest of them so desperately craved, he lead and they followed. It was only my disguise as Grant that kept the wild ones from overtaking the city and burning it to the ground.

When the city fell, and Pemberton surrendered, I returned command to their officers and-" Arte shook his head, sudden anger choking him. He could feel it burning through his chest, making his fingers ache and the veins at his temple throb.

"They didn't leave a single confederate alive on those fortifications."

Arte drew in a sharp breath, breathing around the fury of emotions assaulting him along with the vivid memories. The smells, the sulphurous burn of gunpowder, the coppery tang of blood. The screams of men begging for mercy, men who had counted themselves lucky to have survived, only to be killed once they had allowed themselves to be disarmed. The nightmarish sights that he had never been able to outlive.

"I didn't care." He continued. "I had seen the smoke rising from the part of town where I had left Magnolia and her family. I desperately..._needed..._her to be alive." Arte swallowed hard, then forced himself to continue. "She was dead. Her father was gone...buried maybe under the rubble, or he had escaped. I never found out. Her son was gone too."

Grateful for the dark surrounding them, Arte swiped at the tears that had begun to spill down his face, his voice changing as continued. "He had saved my life, Jim. I would have died, a waste of a man, a fool..." Arte bit hard into the word, grimacing bitterly. "...ensnared by the most disastrous chemical. If it hadn't been for that boy I would have let it take over my life." He paused, calming himself, breathing long and slow, his voice dropping in pitch again. "I had to find him. By the time I did the soldiers had invaded that part of the town. They were looting anything they could carry, terrorizing the white civilians, drinking only to fuel the insanity, despite the pointless yammering of their commanding officers. It was their first victory and they were blood crazed."

Arte swallowed again, wiping his face with the damp kerchief that he had dug out of his breast pocket. "Before the siege, when I brought them into Vicksburg, I had taken Magnolia and her son shopping that next morning. They hadn't brought any food with them. Magnolia had..." Arte laughed softly. "She told she had planned to go back and forth between the house everyday for what they needed." Arte's eyes glimmered with the barely remembered humor and Jim smiled a little, reflexively.

"She was...so strangely innocent, and yet wise." Arte tossed the idea away after a moment with a shake of his head. "Anyway we were in one of the stores and Magnolia's boy had wandered. He'd found a...small vest just his size on a window dummy and was fascinated by the brass buttons. He wouldn't stop touching them, and of course because he was deaf and dumb, something so visually attractive could hold his attention for hours. I insisted that Magnolia let me buy it for him. The minute he understood it was his..." Arte shut his eyes quickly, desperately reining back again.

Quietly from out of the dark came his partner's understanding voice. "Conmen don't usually give gifts to little boys, do they, Arte?"

Arte could only agree silently, sighing shakily. "He loved it..." He whispered, nodding. "He wouldn't take it off, and would...run up to me to show me the buttons. Slept in it that night."

Arte wiped his face again, his hands shaking as he lowered the cloth into his lap, his breaths quickening again.

"What happened, Arte?"

"The Union Colored Troops were looting, not all of them you understand. Just the trouble makers. The ones who had joined so that they could kill. The ones who needed to inflict pain on their white enslavers. The battle had ended. Magnolia was gone. I needed to find the boy." Arte laughed briefly, the sound coming out wet and choked. "I saw the buttons first. I was so relieved just to see that ridiculous vest. He was alive, still, somehow, covered in blood, but on his feet. He must have...wandered away from the boarding house after it was destroyed. And he stood on a street corner, watching as the soldiers went by. Before I could get to him one of the soldiers stopped. I thought, at first, that he was seeing to the boy's injuries. That he might have been intending to carry him back to the medical units behind the lines. I turned away long enough to dismount..."

Arte grew silent again, the tremor gone from his hands. His eyes were distant as he raised his fists, one closed as if curled around the handle of a knife, the other open, reaching for something.

"He had drawn a knife, a large terrifying Bowie knife. He broke ranks, and knelt before the boy, and...cut off the brass buttons, one by one." Arte's teeth came together in a grimace as he dropped his hands, grounding out. "He was smiling as he did it."

Jim sat in the stillness watching the curious calm that had overcome his partner, blinking when Arte faced him clear-eyed and emotionless.

"I put my gun to his head, Jim. I had every intention of killing him." Arte was silent for a long time before he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees again, hanging his head. "I was enraged. Those...stupid brass buttons had brought so much joy to a little boy who had so very little. And it didn't seem to matter to the troop that the boy he was stealing from was...only eight. That he wasn't the son of a wealthy plantation owner, but a poor grandson of an immigrant healer. All he saw was a pale skinned boy in a new vest and he wanted it."

"What happened, Arte?" Jim prompted, not sure he wanted to know. Feeling now that he knew where the story was going, and terrified of what Arte would tell him. Terrified even more that Arte _wouldn't_ tell him.

"I told him to give the buttons back. He looked at the gun as if it were made of wood, not afraid in the least. He was taking his revenge, exacting justice wherever he could get it. When he looked at me he didn't see General Grant. Just another white man trying to make him afraid."

Arte stood, pacing around the end of the couch, moving through the dark and quiet car. After a few minutes had passed Jim heard Arte's voice distantly from the other side of the room. "He came at me with the knife, Jim. Swung the blade at my neck. I pulled the trigger but he was too close to me. The bullet grazed him, blood went everywhere. I thought I had killed him." Arte was quiet for a moment before he softly admitted, "I _must _have."

"And the soldier's father must have seen you do it." Jim finished.

Arte nodded. "Or some other soldier perhaps. They all came from the same county, half of them were probably related. They would have recognized the soldier. And I had identified myself to all that would listen as General Grant."

"Did you tell Grant this?"

Arte shook his head at the gloom. "There wasn't time. I wrote, in my final report, that I had..._defended myself_." Arte ground through his teeth again. "...against an attack by a negro private. I'm certain it was lost in the slew of reports of looting and ungentlemanly conduct."

Jim heard the clink of the crystal decanter against a glass, and the slosh of liquid being poured. A minute later Arte brought him a glass of brandy. Jim was surprised that he would be drinking alone but accepted the cup and gratefully took a sip. After the sweet liquid had burned its way down his throat he asked, "What happened to Magnolia's son?"

Arte sat again on the end of the settee, his fingers coming to rest against his lips. "He died." He said, quietly, drained. "The next day he died from the head injury. He was buried in the mass graves they dug for the casualties."

Jim took another sip of the brandy, surprised at how quickly it was sweeping away the pain in his head. "An' the ol' man?" James slurred, blinking hard. How had he managed to get drunk in two sips?

Arte looked at him, nonplussed. "I don't know. Gone. Probably buried under the rubble of the boarding house."

He was dizzy now, very dizzy, and Arte's voice was wavering oddly, jumping and diving in pitch. It was a familiar feeling. Not like being drunk but...like...like he had been...drugged.

Arte was reaching towards him, taking the cup from his relaxed hand. Bending over him and taking hold of the lapels of his jacket, guiding him into a prone position on the settee, as each muscle in his body relaxed against his will.

His partner had drugged him, Jim realized, and he desperately grabbed the man's sleeve, tightening his grip with the last of his strength, _knowing_ that Arte had done it, and fairly certain as to why.

He was unconscious before he could ask.

As his partner's grip finally relaxed Arte tucked him safely into the settee so that he wouldn't roll and hurt himself further when he woke. He covered the man with a blanket and put a pillow under his head, before re-wetting the cold compress and laying it against the painful looking black eye. He laid his palm against the crown of the younger man's head for a brief moment before he said, "Sleep well, James."

Then he gathered what he would need, dressed in the quiet darkness and saddled his horse, locking the train car before rode into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

October 1874

Central Park, New York City

It was pre-dawn. Cold, gray, and foggy. The strip of natural land preserved in the middle of the bustling city was like another world. Wild in most places, cultured and landscaped in a few. Artemus Gordon had quartered his horse, then hailed a cab, ordering the driver to take him through the park from its southern most edge, winding north along the paths until they passed the menagerie and the arsenal.

New York's Central Park was young. It had been fully established in the '50s before the war, then lay dormant and for the most part undeveloped, but for the arsenal building. In fact the arsenal had been built first, before the city bought the land out from under it in 1853.

Arte remembered Union troops in the spring of 1862 filling what was then only promenade grounds with white canvas, when the regiments of primarily Irish and German immigrants started to form. A tent city, swelling to the limits of the park, had popped up over night as the fresh-off-the-boat volunteers signed their x's and received their government issued equipment.

The arsenal, with its crenulated cornices, oddly shaped walls and castle-like appearance had been a symbol then. Now it was beginning to be dwarfed by the trees around it, generally considered an eye-sore by most, and served a very different purpose.

It was first, and foremost, the home of the American Museum of Natural History, and until only a few years ago, the basement of the building had also housed some of the P. T. Barnum menagerie that was now caged entirely out-of-doors. The smell inside the building had been horrendous. Arte imagined that was part of what had prompted the move.

As he had suspected most of the animals were enjoying their morning feedings, or having their houses tended while they were given walks. Some of the animals were docile, while others paced their cages in the early morning light snapping at anything that moved. The workers in the zoo went about their work in near silence, letting the city continue to sleep, while they readied one of its many attractions for viewers.

The letter MO had sent had named the roof of the arsenal as the location where President Grant was to appear. Before he ordered the hack driver to turn around, heading south again, back into the heart of the park, Arte had craned his neck to get a look at the top of the building in the dim light. The haze of the city had obscured most of the spindles and spires he expected to see, the roof hosting the equipment of the Municipal Weather Bureau.

The letter had also specified that he, President Grant, was to appear on the roof at 10am. Knowing New York City, that hour would be the beginning of the busiest part of the day for the zoo; when most of the nannies and young mothers of the city would take their brood to see the animals, hoping to wear the children out before they received their noon meals and were put down for naps.

In the midst of thousands of women and children the President of the United States could hardly order his guards to search the arsenal, or send the police in en masse to deal with the issue without raising suspicions.

Stomping around on the turf of the Mayor of New York, alone, could make political waves that a man like Grant, with his history of bold and usually unlikable military decisions, couldn't afford.

It was all a great, potentially public, inconvenience and spoke of an inexperienced, if highly intelligent tactician.

Papa had to have an accomplice.

Even as Gordon stepped out of the carriage, paying the driver and walking through the gloom of the park, he tried to picture the big negro man orchestrating the whole thing. He had proven himself a worthy opponent physically, if James West's battered appearance was any indication. Papa was a talented actor, his ability to appear innocent and incidental constantly masking a deeper intellect; if nothing else a natural comprehension of man. He was violently passionate and hiding a great many secrets. Papa was no fool, but he wasn't a genius either.

The exertion of the walk through the park, his mind fully focused on things other than the immediate future, had calmed Arte somewhat and as he approached the menagerie again, dressed as a rotund wino, he felt himself instantly slipping into character. He began to sing, swaying to his own music while he directed a choir that only he could hear and see.

The disguise, basically a large and filthy coat, and oversized pants and shirt, allowed him to carry another bulky bundle under his clothing, and to blend into the culture of the park at so early an hour, better than would, say, a distinguished fifty-year-old gentleman with graying hair and a rather expensive, tailor-made suit.

As he lurched his way around the sea-lion pool, the animal's watching him expectantly; he watched the arsenal windows for any signs of life. Lights, noises, or movement, but the building was dormant and quiet.

He sang and stumbled his way along the front of the building, peering in the ground level windows under the guise of searching the leaf cluttered ground for stray pennies. Each time he would reach a chorus he would straighten, belting his song into the morning with gusto, and checking the windows above him, as well as what he could see of the precipice.

It wasn't until he was sequestered nearly in complete shadow, under the shelter of the fall foliage of a copse of trees around the north-western side of the building that he noticed the disturbed gravel, the vines that had been ripped partially away from the brick walls and the window slightly ajar. Someone had found a way in. Sitting down Arte continued his song, letting his volume drop gradually as if he were continuing on around the building.

When his voice faded altogether he listened for a breathless five minutes. Late fall birds sang, the elephant trumpeted in its house, the sea lions splashed distantly in their pool. Far away he could hear a crowd of grounds workers laughing at a joke, their voices occupied and relaxed.

Arte tested the window, found that it was unlocked and that it opened smoothly, and quietly slid into the absolute darkness of the basement of the arsenal, knowing that he hadn't a clue what lay in wait, and also not having a choice about it. He clung to the window sill until he felt something solid beneath his feet. A stool perhaps or a chair, placed in front of the window for just that purpose.

Arte closed the window after him and stood in the still darkness. The room he was in was large and open, probably used for storage but still containing the banisters and cages that had once held the animals now kept outside in their own houses. He could see the dim glow of the morning through half a dozen windows, but little else.

Still clinging to the window sill Arte stepped down toward the floor, finding that he had been standing on a small stepping stool instead of a chair, and that the distance to the floor wasn't much more than a foot. As he turned he tried to remember the last time he had been there, searching for the staircase that led into the giant ring of cages to orient from there. He hadn't taken more than a few steps before his shins encountered something low, wooden and painful. He lost his balance, threw his hands out and slammed his knuckles into more wood, packing crates, finally managing to stop his downward momentum. In the meantime he had easily made enough noise to wake the dead.

Then the dead spoke.

"Hoose der?"

The question had sounded like "who's there" but came out thick and garbled, like one would expect from a young child learning to talk.

However the voice had been that of a man.

Arte held his breath, desperately wishing his eyes would adjust to the darkness, staring into the black as shapes slowly began to form.

"Hoose der?" The voice asked again, agitated, before the speaker drew in a wet breath, as if he had just taken a drink and was breathing around the liquid in his mouth.

"Hoose der? Hoose der! HOOSE DER!" The words had gone from frantic, to fearful, to terrified screams in seconds.

Arte had no idea who the voice belonged to or why the man was hidden in the basement, but the longer he remained silent the louder the man got.

"It-it's just me!" Arte called, thinking too late about disguising his voice. He could finally see that the floor in front of him was littered with saw dust and boxes and he wormed his way through them carefully.

After a moment the voice asked, curiously, "Who?"

"I'm one of the workahs…" Arte answered, putting a little more New York into his voice this time, waiting for the man to respond before he oriented on the sound and moved again toward it.

"Whoa-kas?" The voice asked, struggling to repeat the word with the added strain of the accent.

"Yeah, I take care of the animals.." Arte said, navigating carefully around a crate that easily dwarfed him, and apparently, also blocked the view of most of the rest of the room. As soon as he rounded it he could see the quiet glow of a lantern hidden under the sweep of the stairs that led to the main floor.

"El-funt!" The voice said after a moment, clearly delighted at the prospect.

"Sure…" Arte said quietly. "Sure, I like the elephants."

The voice huffed repeatedly, a deep-throated, chesty laugh that only lasted a few seconds.

"S'dock." The voice said and Arte heard the lantern scrape against the stone of the floor, watched it rise a few feet then dance in a lazy figure eight.

"That's a nice lantern you have there.." Arte called, and the lantern froze, drawing back, closer to the one who held it. Arte could make out a pair of men's night-clothes on a large body, the drape of a dark robe and piles of blankets on the floor.

"S'hot. Don' touch!" The voice warned and Arte nodded.

"Yes we must always be careful around fire." Arte was in a cage, he realized, feeling the tiniest notes of panic before he pushed at the gate and felt it swing easily. The gate opened onto a pathway, the main pedestrian area when the basement was an exhibit. Beyond that were other cages and the stairs.

Somehow the man belonging to the lantern, and the voice, had gotten himself under the stairs and Arte doubted it was via climbing through the cages. There had to be another way and he strode quickly up the aisle as the voice, apparently no longer interested in chatting, began to sing.

A familiar song that sounded very much like a lullaby.

The basement, despite the fall chill, felt unacceptably warm of a sudden and Arte pulled off the coat he'd been wearing. Standing at the base of the stairs he peered up them. The doors that opened onto the main floor, and blocked the basement off to the public, were closed and probably locked. From the foot of the stairs he could more easily hear the lone inhabitant of the basement, and for that matter smell him. It was either the man or a chamber pot that had been soiled sometime in the night.

Arte wrinkled his nose, cleared his throat and was again asked, "Hoose der?"

This time the question wasn't a demand however, but delivered sing-song. Like it was a game the man played.

"You remember me, don't ya. I feed the elephants." Arte answered, taking off his shirt and laying that over the coat that he had already spread across the stairs, before he carefully put down the bundle of clothing that had been strapped around his waist.

The huffing sound came, the laughter, dwindling as it had before, the lantern scraping back to the ground. "D'you know…Papa?"

Arte was sweating. Something was pumping heat into the room, a steam vent perhaps, making the basement akin to Georgia in July. But the question from the man with the lantern sent a chill down his spine. Pulling Jim's sleeve gun out of the bundle of clothes, and strapping it carefully to his forearm he said, "Do I know your Papa? Well sure…he tol' me all about you."

"Heese goood man, gooood man." The voice said, repeating the final two words over and over as canvas and wood creaked. A cot, Arte surmised, that was now squeaking as the man rocked back and forth on it.

Arte could feel his breath quickening, his hands starting to shake so much that twice he accidentally hit the catch on the sleeve gun, causing it to nearly shoot out of his hands each time as he desperately pulled on the white dress shirt. Fumbling with the black string tie. The black vest, and waist coat.

His presidential disguise.

"He be back soon." The voice said and Arte froze, swallowed and forced his voice to calmly ask,

"Your papa?"

"No. My friend." The voice said, huffing like a chortling seal, before repeating, "My friend." Again there was the wet sound, like someone slurping noisily from a spoon.

It was too damned hot in there. He was already sweating through the shirt and vest and he wouldn't have a prayer of getting the false beard and side burns to adhere to his face.

"You're friend, eh?" Arte used the wino shirt to wipe his face, even as he was deciding that fully dressing there would be pointless. "What's your friend's name?"

"MmmBuck!" The man said, giving his seal laugh again, chortling at the hard consonants, repeating the name.

Arte clutched at the banister to the stair case and sat, abruptly, his knees suddenly nothing more than jelly. He couldn't breathe anymore. It was too hot, the stench of the waste bucket too close. The heavy voice was laughing in the darkness, chattering the name over and over again like a poorly trained parrot.

"Buck! Buck…Buck!"

Buck. Buck Grant?

It had to be a coincidence, and yet...

"Why?" Arte whispered to himself. Why would Buck Grant orchestrate his own kidnapping? Thrusting a pall over his brother's wedding, terrorizing his father and family with letters, and upsetting an entire administration?

Before he could even form the question to which he desperately needed answers, the door at the top of the stairs clanged and swept open.

Arte jumped to his feet, scooping up what he had placed on the stairs and hurriedly backing away from the steps as a wedge of light fell across the long wooden rise. Artemus stumbled back into the shadows, desperately trying to find a crate to hide behind, holding his breath as he scrunched down behind a box barely three feet tall.

"Lance?" A voice called down. Deep, tired, Papa.

"El-funt!" The man cried, delighted.

The voice at the top of the stairs seemed to smile as he called, "What I tell you about stayin' quiet this early in the mornin'."

The man beneath the stairs drew in a wet breath, but said nothing more.

"You got your lantern, son?"

"Ye Papa."

"Good man.." The voice at the top of the stairs praised. "I be down with your breakfast in just a little while. Gotta finish my chores now."

"Papa?" The sound of the question halted the giant man who had already begun to close the door. "Buck comin' t'day?"

"Course he is. Buck always come to play wif you."

"Gooood man."

The man at the top of the stairs chuckled. "That's right. He's a good man."

The door closed and latched and the light slowly faded. The large room was still and vacant of life, like a tomb, with only the whisper of a song on Lance's lips.

Arte was bathed in sweat, frozen in place, afraid to move. Afraid to think. Afraid that the man under the stairs would remember that he was there.

"Elfunt man?" Lance whispered, searchingly.

Afraid he would have to answer.

The normally deep laugh came out as a high-pitched giggle this time with Lance's efforts to remain quiet. "You hidin', elfunt man?"

Could he run? If so, where would he go? In the sudden darkness could he make it back to the open window?

The sawdust under the creaking cot shifted again and Arte forced himself to peer around the corner of the crate, in time to watch the lantern rise to about four feet off the ground.

Arte felt his heart clench, then release, his lungs begging for more air than he dare give them, as panic tried to set in. He could hear Lance's feet scraping across the ground. His searching whisper calling, "Elfunt man?" Over and over. Nothing more than a child playing hide and seek. Except Arte knew Lance wasn't a child.

The lantern light was edging towards him. He wasn't that well hidden. He didn't know what would happen if he stood, suddenly appearing in front of Lance. Would the man cry out in surprise? Would he be angered, or delighted? Would he be violent, or curious?

He couldn't move. And it turned out he didn't need to. Lance saw the corner of the coat Arte had been wearing leaking out from behind the box and let out the low chuckle, shuffling along until the lantern easily lit them both.

A giant, coal-black face greeted Arte, grinning lopsided. A groove along the large negro man's forehead was hardened, pink scar tissue; the wound that had caused it had to have easily gone down to the bone. He was bigger now, heavier. His face friendlier, warmer. And barren of the intelligence he'd once shown. He was drooling. That was the wet sound Arte had heard, and probably hadn't been bathed in some time.

"You de elfunt man?" Lance asked, hunching over, dangling the lantern close enough to Arte's face that he could feel the heat tightening his skin.

"In a manner of speaking…" Arte whispered.


	9. Chapter 9

New York City

Central Park

The Arsenal

Lance chuckled, slurping at the drool coating his lips, and going down onto his haunches. He still held the lantern, letting it dangle by the handle, held aloft by two of his fingers.

"Like de elfunts. Like dem elfunts." Lance was saying, and the lantern swayed a little, coming dangerously close to Arte's face.

Arte reached his elbow up behind him, finding the top edge of the crate he'd been hiding against and using that as leverage to rise. He got his feet under him and bent, only taking his eyes off the large man to collect the wino coat and shirt, and the various pieces of his presidential impression, before he stood.

He backed all the way to the stairs, Lance staying where he had been, distracted now by the swaying light of the lantern. The sun had started to rise and Arte could more easily see the room around him. The pitch darkness hadn't necessarily been due to the night. He could see now that most of the windows were covered with black paint, likely to discourage non-paying peepers when the menagerie was stored there.

The heat was coming from a boiler room on the northwestern side of the basement. The door was closed but Arte could see from there that it had been warped in its frame. As his eyes continued to adjust Arte climbed the stairs, still clinging to his bundle, peering through the etched glass of the door. A velvet rope was slung in front of it on the other side and he could see the main entrance down the length of a long hallway off of which most of the large rooms of the arsenal branched.

There was no one in sight yet, but he knew Papa was coming. Arte dropped his bundle at the top of the stairs, pulling out the wig, the beard and mustache and the false nose before he stuffed the rest through the space between the steps.

Lance had grown quiet somewhere below. From where he stood, Arte could no longer see the lantern. He pulled his lock picks and got to work, quickly tripping the lock, opening the door, and locking it again before he listened with his ear to the door, open only a crack.

Greeted with the long silence he was hoping to hear, Arte slipped through and into the main hall. To the left and right of the stairs leading to the basement, were more stairs climbing to the second floor and Arte vaulted up them two at a time. The first floor had felt like a burst of sea air compared to the tropics of the basement and Arte took a deep breath, smelling the familiar distant odor of formaldehyde and the other chemicals of taxidermy.

Most of the exhibits of the Natural History Museum were once live specimens, now dead, stuffed and creatively mounted in glass display cases. The most spectacular attraction however was on the second floor; the dino-saur that was being constructed daily by a well-established archeologist and his team, before the wondering eyes of any that chose to come and see it.

The exhibit was vacant as Arte hurried past it. Nothing but fossilized bone and a fine gray dust under the parts of the animal structure that were complete.

On the third floor Arte slowed, searching for and finally finding a men's lavatory. It was, of course, locked, and he picked his way in, locking the door behind him before he ripped off the heavy black coat, pressed his shoulders against the cool brick wall of the small waiting room and allowed himself to breathe.

He'd been foolish to think he could waltz in through the basement and not be seen or heard by anyone. Surely Lance would start shouting about the 'elfunt' man who had come to visit him as soon as his Papa delivered breakfast. The man would then at least know that someone else was in the building, raising suspicions.

He had practically blown his chances from the beginning and had only himself to blame.

Arte pushed away from the wall and went to a gold-rimmed, cherub lined mirror hanging on the wall. For a moment he forced himself to look only at his costume, straightening the shirt, fixing the tie. He pulled on the coat and tucked his thumbs behind the lapels, jutting out his chin and striking the pose that Grant was known for.

But his eyes met blood-shot brown, instead of steely blue-gray. His eye color was the only part of the President he hadn't yet developed a way to mimic.

Releasing the lapels of the jacket Arte took it off again, hanging it carefully on a nearby hook before he poured a little water into a basin, washing his face and drying it thoroughly. He began his work with the false mustache and beard, allowing himself to focus entirely on that. Tucking away the parts of Artemus Gordon that wouldn't fit with the character he was preparing to portray. Unlike an actor on the stage _his_ ability to convince his audience could very well mean life or death for himself, and others. That had always been the bottom line when he prepared for a long-term role, and it came to him this time like a familiar and comforting ritual.

By the time he finished, but for the eye color, he was the spitting image of the President. As to the eyes, the best he could do was to put on a pair of spectacles, and hope that the reflection off the glass was enough to disguise the discrepancy long enough. He looked at his watch, surprised at how much time had passed. It was nearly 8 am. The Museum would be opening soon.

Ducking out of the lavatory, Arte checked the hall once more before he found the spiral staircase that was roped off in a corner of one of the newest exhibits. He stepped over the barrier and climbed the stair, prepared to pick the padlock that normally kept the doors closed to the public. But the padlock wasn't there. He pushed the door up, and it opened on a squeaking hinge, a curved bar keeping it from becoming flush against the surface of the roof.

Outside the city was back to its rollicking, crying, rustling, bristling pace. He could hear children below waiting anxiously to be allowed into the zoo, all of the animals making their various calls, the rattling of the fall leaves on a promising breeze…then a voice. Young, casting off a bitter laugh before it spoke behind him.

"I must say, I'm surprised you came. This is a step in humility that I didn't think was possible for the great Ulysses S. Grant. And alone, without your favorite body guards." The voice paused, sighing. Arte judged the speaker was no more than thirty feet behind him. "But, you were never accused of being _cowardly_, were you?"

* * *

Hudson River Rail Yard

Jim woke to the sound of the telegraph key rattling incessantly. His mouth was cotton, his head was stuffed with stampeding wildebeest and his eye throbbed in time with the endless clicking. He rose stiffly from the settee, taking every movement slow and careful. Stumbling nearly blind and almost completely out of instinct to the wash room, and running water into the basin before he sank his head in, James stayed under until his lungs demanded a breath.

Only when he lifted his head from the basin, dripping water, and taking deep lungfuls of air, did the other night come back to him. A quiet conversation in the pitch darkness of the car, Arte confessing emotionally to…something. A murder? Arte might have worded it that way. A killing that was the result of horrible circumstances coming to a head, all of which meant that MO, or Papa, had done this kidnapping in vain. The wrong man was being punished.

And then Arte had drugged him.

Jim groaned opening the good eye before he splashed his face again and straightened. He studied his reflection in the mirror. His left eyelid was swollen shut, a puffy shiner that would be a brilliant and colorful bruise before too long. Jim worked his jaw, feeling along his cheekbone, and around the socket to make sure none of the bones had been broken in his face. He was tender but nothing moved more than it should have.

As much as he would have loved to pour himself another one of Arte's special brandies, grab a cold cut steak and slap it over his eye before passing out again, he couldn't.

He had a partner, driven by guilt, running headlong out of the frying pan and into the fire, the President's second son to save, and numerous other long past wrongs to right.

In the meantime, Jim was quietly building up a head of steam. Arte's presumptuous and impulsive nature was always at odds with Jim's laid back attitude, but this time…Arte had never intentionally drugged him before. Not that he could recall anyway. It dug at him as he moved to the telegraph key, silencing it by switching it to send, before he responded to the unending call.

There was a lull, and Jim jerked off his jacket and shirt feeling the other bruises from yesterday's fight come to life. He ran a wetted cloth over his arms and torso before he pulled on a clean shirt, the telegraph still silent. Sore, he worked his way into the dove-gray bolero suit. It riled him when he realized that Arte had once again taken his sleeve gun.

The final straw was finding that Arte had taken his notes from the other night, including those that described when and where the President was supposed to meet MO.

His hand at the telegraph key wasn't nearly as adroit and adept as Arte's and it took twenty minutes longer than it would have taken his partner, to communicate with Washington and get the information sent again.

It was 8:00. The meeting was supposed to start in two hours. The president was officially refusing to acquiesce to MO's demands. Unofficially he was on his way.

Jim would meet him at the Grand Central Depot on 42nd Street and escort him to Central Park, but insisted that the President not leave the carriage Jim would hire and drive.

'Any other instructions…' The question came over the wire, and then the key went silent. Jim's fingers hovered over the small flat metal circle before he tapped out his final message.

* * *

Arsenal, Central Park

He was normally a shy youth and studious. And he had always, from the early years, been at odds with his father. Arte didn't know if it had been because he was named after the old man, or merely the result of being the second son.

Buck had been the last of Grant's children that Arte met, primarily because he never chose to visit his father on the campaign during the Great Unrest. If Frederick, Nellie and Jesse were out playing, or visiting their father, or enjoying a rollicking game together in the parlor, Buck would always be found elsewhere scribbling in a note pad, tucked into the crook of a tree reading or taking a walk by himself; much preferring his own company to anyone else's.

Never the less, Arte knew that Grant loved all of his children equally, and had a special passion for Buck.

Arte turned slowly to face him.

Ulysses S. Grant Jr. sat on the barrel of a calcified brass Napoleon 9 pounder. The gun was positioned such that it could have, at some point, been used to defend the building, but now was mere decoration.

He was the very image of his father in year's past. The same long nose and straight forward profile. He bore a mustache now, his hair cut short as was the fashion for young men. His eyes were bright, bluish grey like his father and cold.

"Did you wonder at all why I declared my studies more important than a short jaunt to Chicago for Frederick's wedding?" Buck asked, accusingly. "Or why you barely heard from me while I attended Harvard?" The young man laughed again, a sardonic smile just under the thick mustache. "I suppose you don't even remember Moses."

Arte cleared his throat and asked, "Moses?" Picturing the president in his mind, trying to copy his voice exactly.

Buck didn't flinch, only shaking his head. "Moses, father. The negro man I've had in my employ for the past five years. I wrote to you that I had taken him on, that I was teaching him to read and write. His handwriting has greatly improved over time, he could be a secretary someday. His passion for…his son…" Buck paused, then jumped down from the cannon. "But then that's why we're here."

Arte waited.

The more he talked the sooner Buck would know that his father wasn't actually there. Had he been, Gordon imagined that Grant would have been quietly furious at the contempt on his son's face and in his voice.

"Well…Mr. Owens will join us at the appointed time." Buck moved to one of the tall parapets looking out over the park zoo as it flooded with children. "You do have the right to face your accuser before judgment is passed. All I ask, father, is that you not treat this…trial…as if it were… a farce."

The young man turned and faced Arte squarely. "There are crimes for which you will never pay, and…" Buck gave a humorless smile, grandly gesturing to the flat, mostly empty roof top. "This of course is no courtroom. In fact were it not for Moses' and my tireless efforts, you would be standing in several inches of pigeon feces. I'm afraid they may become your only jury, another fallacy you can point out later in your memoirs."

How long had he been quietly hating his father, Arte wondered. How long had Buck been convinced that his father had committed this terrible crime, leaving a shell behind, never answering for it in any way?

Buck took a few steps toward Arte, seeming completely at home, his hands going behind his back. He launched back into his speech as if he had memorized it, eager to finally deliver his line and get it over with. "You've come early, and thus ruined the little drama I had planned. It was juvenile, yes, but I could think of no other way to bring...everyone together again. When I requested that you and I meet in July you were preoccupied. In August you were worrying over Nellie and her departure across the ocean. And September...well...you needed September to plan for Frederick's wedding. Not to mention the other affairs of state. But believe me I didn't ask you here out of sibling rivalry-."

Slowly Arte reached up to the bridge of his nose, peeling off the putty sculpture he'd spent almost ten minutes putting into place. As Buck watched, his voice cut off, Arte took off the mustache next, then tugged at each part of the beard. Each piece he tossed down at his feet. The overcoat went next, then the vest, before Arte approached Buck with nothing remaining of the disguise.

"I apologize for interrupting your boastful rant.." Arte said, disappointment and anger mixing together in his tone, spreading over the empty rooftop. "But you've gotten the wrong idea about your father from the start, and its time I set you straight."

"Mr. Gordon..."

Arte could see Buck's face contorting in disgust, trembling with rage and humiliation. For a brief moment Buck had thought he'd won, finally achieving a strategic victory against the great strategist, Grant himself. It was a battle that most men fought until either they or their father were dead. The fight to achieve the final dominance over the man that would never be their lesser.

"That's right. I'm flattered you remember me. I came here expecting to find you a hostage. Yet, you've orchestrated this whole thing yourself."

"This isn't an orchestration, this is a response..." Buck said, protesting with a finger jabbing towards the roof. "To injustice."

"What injustice?" Arte asked, quietly, prompting.

"My father killed a man, in cold blood."

"Your father may have killed a man, but in war time as a soldier. And never in cold blood." Arte said wearily. "And you know full well that this 'man' is still alive."

Buck's eyes narrowed as he cocked his head, before shaking it slowly. "No, Mr. Gordon. You don't seem to understand. You were there at Vicksburg, were you not? During the siege?"

"I was there.." Arte admitted after a moment, his tone dropping.

"You recall the colored troops that invaded from Louisiana?"

"I recall.."

"Moses, my man servant, had five children, Mr. Gordon. Five boys. The two youngest were twins. Four of those five boys were serving at Vicksburg. None of them survived."

"But then...Lance..."

"Lance?"

"My Lance wasn't ever at Vicksburg, Mister." Moses' voice came from behind Arte, deep and rumbling. Arte jumped and turned to face the giant man who rose through the hole in the roof. "Lance always been a dummy. When he and his brother was born our Massa Bowles saw how Lance look small and weak next to his brother. Tried to kill him wif a board, cause he ain't had no need for a dummy slave. His mother, God rest her soul, save his life. But the massa done his damage plenty. Union Army started takin' colored volunteers, they wouldn't take no dummy. Not even to carry water or help out wif chores. I kep' Lance home wif me."

"But...Lance had a twin brother..." Arte said, his voice barely audible.

Moses nodded, wet dark brown eyes casting away from Arte's face. "He had him four brothers. De oldest knew all about gun powder and explodin' things. He and de second oldest was sent into them tunnels to explode that gun powder. They never did make it out in time." The giant man's voice had begun to thicken as he spoke, his sweat bathed face, wet now with something else.

Arte remembered the tunnels that had been dug by Rebel forces leading into and out of Vicksburg. He remembered that Grant had had engineers on the outside digging their own tunnels and that gunpowder had been stored, and exploded, leaving giant craters in the ground. In the end the craters had proved equally as deadly for both sides.

"The second oldest. He owned a horse. Loved horses. He was a good man...he didn't want to kill. Didn't want to hurt nothin' so they put him in the cavalry and he tended the horses. Give him a bugle to play the calls. He wasn't even armed when they shot him, right outta the saddle." Moses didn't move, didn't shift or mumble. When he spoke he did so clearly, his voice marred only by the emotion. His feet remained planted firmly, shoulder width apart, his shoulders squared, his hands hanging by his side.

"Lance's brother...his name was Simon. They grew up together, lovin' one another. But for his mother and me, Lance didn't have nobody else to love him, but Simon loved him pure. He always helpin' his brother. Teachin' him to talk, to do chores, be quiet when white folks was talkin' and to speak up when he in church sayin' scriptures. Lance memorize real good, and Simon always there to help. If Lance had a bad dream, Simon there to comfort him. Simon always know what Lance like. Always lookin' out for his brother."

Arte tried to take a deep breath and found that he couldn't. Memories were crashing around him like a tempest. The man he had shot at Vicksburg was dead, truly. A question he had asked himself a thousand times finally answered, but worse, the image of the man was changing. Warping. Somehow the sneering, leering face of Private Simon Owen was becoming saintly and warm. The man cutting buttons off the vest of a stunned and wounded little boy, was a beloved son. The two pictures didn't belong together.

"Moses didn't actually see my father kill Simon, that day, Mr. Gordon." Buck said, some of the arrogance gone. "But there were other witnesses. Witnesses that placed him in Vicksburg at that time and saw him pull the gun on Mr. Simon Owens without provocation, shooting him dead."

"Not your father..." Arte said breathless, his head hanging, feeling like he was swimming through molasses.

"Mr Gordon..." Buck began, his voice cold, disbelieving, becoming irate at Arte's insistence.

"It wasn't your father, Buck. Believe me. There was...another man. Dressed to look like Grant, masquerading as him to distract snipers who were prepared and eager to kill him."

This stopped Buck cold and Arte could see him pale a little. Gordon lifted his eyes to watch Buck, then faced Moses, waiting until the giant man's brown eyes met his own. "I..." he forced through his lips, the sound barely audible under the roar of the children below and the bellow of the city. "...killed your son."

The hurt and pain that had softened Moses Owen's features a moment ago became brittle, hardened and turned from pain to anger. It wasn't new, young and brash but old, familiar. The anger that every parent carries with him after he's been forced to survive his child.

Arte could no longer meet his gaze, and stood trembling, staring at the rooftop, only looking up when Owen's massive hands moved.

"You killed my son Simon?" Moses asked quietly, the pain in his voice hidden for the most part by the natural rumble.

Arte didn't respond. He didn't have to. Moses backed away from him turning toward the hole in the roof. He bent down, speaking softly to someone standing on the spiral staircase below and after a minute or so Moses straightened, his hand still lowered, guiding an arm up out of the hole. Then the rest of the body of the man Arte had met in the basement.

In the light he could see more clearly that Lance, obviously, wasn't the man he had killed. Things about Lance were different that couldn't have changed merely with the passage of time. He was shorter than Simon had been, his spine badly curved giving him a permanent hunch on one shoulder.

As soon as Lance saw him he grinned, only half of his mouth responding, and pointed at Arte, "Elfunt man! Papa, de elfunt man!"

Moses didn't respond, guiding his son closer until he stood four feet in front of Arte. "We gon' talk about Simon, now." Moses said to his son, then he looked to Arte. His lower lip visibly quaking now. "Every night, for years after Simon dead, Lance come to me and ask me…"Why ain't Simon come to bed, Papa?""

Even as Moses spoke Lance quietly mimicked the question, as if remembering the words himself.

"He ask, "Simon still fightin'?" And I have to tell him every night…Simon gone. He gone for ever till Glory Day."

"Gloooooory day." Lance declared, his eyes roving a bit as he looked to the heavens then back again.

"He use ta cry out at night, beggin' for Simon to come and make his bad dreams go away. Wouldn't matter if I come or his Momma come to him, bless her soul. He want Simon…an' I couldn't give him Simon. An every time a part of Lance die away, along wif his brother. He always wantin' to know _why_ Simon ain't comin' back. And I swore…the day I found out who killed my boy…" Moses grit his teeth hard, grinding out. "I was gonna make that man explain to Lance…"

Arte was terrified. His heart had never beat so hard or so fast in his life. He'd faced a thousand guns, a hundred knives, arrows and spears and bombs. He would willingly take a hundred bullets if it would spare him having to answer one question.

"Why..." Moses asked, choking. "...did you kill my boy?"


	10. Chapter 10

Lance's eyes were focused somewhere else. There was a little quirk at the corner of his mouth that might have been a smile. A bird flitted past winging rapidly from one tree to the next and he watched it with innocent delight.

Moses did nothing to return his boy's attention to Artemus, leaving that entirely to the man who had caused so much pain.

What could Arte say? That it was an accident, that he was sorry that it happened, that he…what? Wouldn't do it again?

Would a lie suffice instead?

For long minutes the fall morning was broken by nothing but the shrill cries of delight from the children below, shouts from the street and the flap of the flags that had been raised nearby.

Jim West came clattering up the steps a second later, searching the roof before he spotted Moses and Lance, Arte in only his shirt sleeves and pants, and Buck standing still and silent several feet away. The scene was so still and awkward, the roof silent as he'd climbed the stairs; he didn't know what to make of it. He cocked the gun in his hand but froze, unsure.

"Arte?"

"Put it away, Jim." Arte responded after a moment, his eyes remaining trained on Lance.

"Are you alright?"

"Put it away." Arte insisted vehemently, waiting until Jim had holstered his sidearm before he asked. "Is he here?"

It took Jim a moment, looking between his partner and Buck Grant, before he responded, "Yes, in a carriage below. Arte-" But he was cut off again when his partner looked to the twenty-two year old.

"Your father is here, Buck. You owe him a thorough explanation."

Buck didn't respond vocally, only stood considering Arte's words then took the first step towards the roof hatch. He passed Moses and paused, but again could think of nothing to say and disappeared back into the museum.

"Arte, what's goin' on here?" Jim asked quietly, studying the big man that had, the day before, clobbered him and stuffed him in a trunk.

"Papa, who dat?" Lance asked, eyeing the gray bolero suit, black hat and boots.

James looked to his pale partner, who appeared small next to the two giant negro men hovering near him. There was tension between Artemus and Moses, but the younger man seemed oblivious to it. After a moment of thought Jim took off his hat and smiled winningly at Lance.

"I'm James West. What's your name?"

"LanseOwen. My name. LanseOwen." Lance said happily and reached out a hand, excited to participate in the ritual of manhood.

Jim shook his hand, smiling in return to the burst of genuine joy, before he again traded glances with his partner then looked to Moses.

"You're Mr. Owen?" He asked, the smile disappearing as he returned to a respectful, military tone.

Jim didn't get a response but forged onward. "Mr. Owen I've come across some information that you should be made aware of. I would suggest that we not discuss it in front your son. He seems to be in good spirits, and might not like what I have to say."

Arte's eyes went wide open in surprise, his desperate thoughts shifting as he realized that he had no clue what Jim was saying, or where he was leading the conversation.

Moses studied West for a long moment before he turned to his son and said, "Lance. You got chores left?"

Lance thought for a moment. "Yeah Papa, gotta sweep. Gotta sweep. Gotta get dat ice, for da ice cream man. Gotta get dat ice."

"Go on ahead then. I'll call you when dinner ready."

Lance went carefully to the cellar like door on the roof, talking himself down into the building before his voice and figure disappeared down the spiral stair.

James watched Lance leave, moving to the hatch and closing it slowly before he straightened and spoke. "Mr. Owen, Artemus Gordon and I are both Secret Service Agents. We also both served General Grant during the War Between the States, I as aide-de-camp, and Captain Gordon as a spy, and later as an officer in the cavalry." Jim paused, considered his approach then continued. "At Vicksburg, Captain Gordon made the decision to disguise himself as President Grant in order to confuse the enemy, and give them a secondary target, when it came to his knowledge that the snipers on the walls were gathering together a pot that would go to the man who assassinated the General."

None of this appeared to be news to Moses Owen, and Jim glanced at his partner to watch him duck his head and close his eyes, as if he was about to plug his ears next so he wouldn't have to listen to the retelling.

"When you and I had our encounter in your attic room," Jim said, looking back to Moses."… the brawl upset a few things and we found the picture of your son. This morning I noticed that his name and his regiment had been written on the back of the photograph, so I cabled Washington and asked them to look up your son's war record."

That had Arte's attention, and Jim caught the flash of anger, before he turned away from Gordon ignoring him.

"Mr. Owen, the regiment that Simon Owen, Private, served with was known for their fighting valor, especially with less than superior and even improvised weaponry and training. But they were also known for their unruly behavior. A great many members of the infantry were reported as looting and ransacking the town, destroying buildings by fire and even attacking some of the citizens of the city."

Moses had closed his eyes too, and was breathing heavily, blinking against tears that rolled over the contours of his face.

"A witness…" Jim paused, looking to his partner who was focused entirely on Moses. "Reported seeing, your son, amongst others, participating in some of this looting. Private Owen was approached by an officer who ordered him to stop. The officer was armed. When your son turned on him with a knife in hand, the officer's gun went off. Simon was wounded, and was taken to the field hospital where he died a day later."

"That witness a white man?" Moses asked, eyeing West finally.

Jim sighed softly, and shook his head. "No sir. He was a negro private in your son's unit. He and a handful of others had been disturbed by their fellow soldier's behavior and had chosen to abstain. He said that he had tried to warn them early on, but that it did no good. That the men were in a killing frenzy, seeking revenge. This witness also stated that the men in the unit had been responsible for the killing of many unarmed Confederates when they first breached the walls. Those men had already clearly surrendered….and were slaughtered. The witness very specifically included your son, Mr. Owen. I'm sorry."

Finally Moses dropped his head. "Some days it seem God put all the good in the world into Lance, an all the bad in the world into Simon. But Simon always good to his brother. Lance don't deserve to be so alone in da worl'."

Short of apologizing again there was nothing Jim could say. He watched the tall man closely, seeing the little fight that he had left drain out of him.

"You gonna arrest me, Mr. Jim West?"

"No, Mr. Owen. We have no evidence of your having committed a crime."

"You excuse me…" The man muttered, and then opened the hatch, disappearing down the hole in the floor.

Were Jim able he would have given Moses Owen a hundred other tales about his son. Most of them likely untrue. Unfortunately, other than his date of swearing in and the information concerning his performance in Vicksburg, there had been nothing else in Simon's record. The Vicksburg campaign had been the first for his unit, and in many cases, the last. Moses' son had been a fierce and formidable fighting man. He had also been a very dark and violent man. Both those aspects came to gruesome light at Vicksburg.

Arte had wandered to the Napolean that was mounted on the east end of the roof of the building and stood behind it, his hand lying on the caskable, his back turned to his partner as he looked over the sprawling city, and beyond it to the tall-masted ships crowded around the ports.

As Jim approached Arte spoke, not turning. "Imagine you had a son, Jim, who seemed to be everything a man wants in a child.

Tall, strong, handsome. Passionate of heart, intelligent of mind, and a leader…a prince among men." Artemus sighed as he said,

"Then …that prince is stolen from you one night, with no explanation."

Jim put his hat back on his head and put the toe of a boot up against the heavy wood block that the cannon sat on. "I think all fathers feel that way about their sons, Arte."

"Not all fathers." Arte said, softly, then finally looked to his partner. "He asked me why I killed his boy. I stood there…desperately trying to find an answer that would bring healing." Arte shook his head. "Was all that true? What you said about the witness and Owen's unit?"

Jim pushed his bottom lip out and nodded. "The young man who gave the testimony and signed it was never called before a military tribunal because most of the men accused were dead by the time anybody started thinking about trials. Their records were closed along with all the others and the matter was never brought up again. That's probably why your own report never drew any notice." Jim paused for a moment then said, "What I didn't tell him was that the war department has back pay due Mr. Owen for his other sons' service. It won't be much but it may help for a little while."

As Jim grew silent, Arte held his arm away from his body and started to work at the cuff of his right sleeve, finally getting the button loose and rolling the cloth up until he could get to the ties that bound the sleeve gun to his arm.

Jim watched, confused for a moment, wondering why his partner had bothered to arm himself with a quick access weapon that would have taken too long to access to do any good. It seemed moderately suicidal, and as Arte slapped the gun, rig and all, into his hand, Jim wondered if that had been the point.

"Sorry about that, Jim." Arte apologized, almost as an afterthought, shaking Jim's hand and slapping the side of his arm before he walked toward the hole in the roof.

"Where are you going, Arte?" Jim asked.

Arte had bent to pick up the coat and vest, and various hair pieces that he had discarded earlier. As he straightened he looked to his partner, and then gave him a dim close-mouthed smile. "Come on. I wanna show you something."

Arte started down the spiral steps and Jim followed him. They wove their way through the crowded museum, all but ignored by the mêlée of children and mothers and nannies and doting grandparents. Only a few children were there with their fathers.

On the street the carriage that Jim had hired was waiting still where he'd left it and West crossed the road quickly, checking in on the President and his son. He conversed with them briefly before he nodded to the security man standing outside the carriage. "Take them to Grand Central, see that they get aboard and wire The Wanderer once they've safely returned to the White House."

By that time Arte had once more donned the vest and coat, but left them unbuttoned, his hands in his pockets as he waited on the street corner, looking just unkempt enough that with only a little dirt he could easily pass for a denizen of the street.

For the first time Jim saw his partner in a different light. As a blank canvas on which any person or character could be painted. He realized, further, that he was probably one of the privileged few that actually saw behind the canvas at any given time.

As soon as Arte saw that Jim was coming he headed down the street at a swift walking pace, forcing Jim to jog to catch up with him. His partner's face was still a mask of conflicting emotions, so Jim kept to himself as they walked two blocks south, and then climbed aboard a trolley, riding it another twenty blocks. When Arte stepped off, Jim followed, the two walking through the high iron gates of a large cemetery. Marble slabs, tombs and crypts populated the land like a small village. Clearly the burial places of the fashionable and wealthy.

They walked together through the headstones, to anyone else wandering without purpose or direction. Jim waited for Arte to make up his mind, finally spotting a headstone with a familiar name.

"Maude Strater Gordon, born 1774, died 1837. Our beloved Aunt, whose wisdom shall see us through the ages." Jim read out loud, then he read it again to himself and turned a surprised look to his partner.

Arte gave his Mona Lisa smile and said nothing.

"You really _do_ have a Great Aunt Maude!"

Arte chuckled softly and shook his head, "No, Jim. Maude Gordon existed, but she's no relation to me. I was 10 when I discovered her. She uh…" Arte paused looking past the grave, beyond several elaborate headstones and into a different portion of the cemetery that had clearly been set aside for those with less wealth to spend on the dearly departed. "She was being interred the same day my mother was buried in the pauper's section over there. Those who came to mourn my mother were few and far between and none of them were interested in looking after a 10-year-old boy so I..wandered. I found dear Aunt Maude here, with fresh flowers planted in the soil and a nicely inscribed tomb stone. I knew my mother's grave would go unmarked, and her last name had changed so many times I didn't know which one should apply to me. So I picked Gordon."

Jim stared at his partner until Arte looked up. "You're always yammering about my past…well here it is. Here is the birth place of Artemus Gordon."

Jim laughed softly, clearing some fall leaves from the headstone before he stood and studied the older man next to him. "Arte…don't take this the wrong way, but why are you showing this to me?"

Suddenly Arte was visibly uncomfortable, fidgeting in place, upsetting the kerchief in his breast pocket, putting his hands in his pocket, then digging them back out again. "I um…" Arte cleared his throat, reaching to his collar as if his tie was to tight, then realizing that his collar was open, and there was no tie. "Nevermind."

Arte started to walk away, heading in the general direction of the main gate of the cemetery, Jim was about to take a step to follow him when Arte seemed to come to a decision and marched firmly back, one hand extended jabbing a pointed finger into Jim's chest.

"You're the closest thing to family I've ever had in my life, you're like a brother to me, and I…I love ya Jim. And I figured…" Arte gestured to the tomb and finished, "...someone oughta know." Arte paused, taking a stabilizing breath before he opened his hand, like a magician finishing a trick and smiled slightly. "That's all."

Jim smirked, suddenly proud of his partner. "I appreciate that, Arte." He said softly, and watched the pained smile leave his partner's face replaced with something more relaxed. It was the first time since the case began that he saw some of the old, carefree Arte trying to break through again. It would take time he knew, for the older man to learn to forgive himself. But there was definite hope for it now. Together the two men quietly left the cemetery, hailing a cab and returning to their home on the rails.

* * *

_**From "The Civil War: An Illustrated History" By Geoffrey C. Ward**_

_**Excerpt from an interview with Shelby Foote**_

_**Page 269**_

_"I had a great uncle. His name was Walter Jolley. And he was nine years old at the time of the surrender [of Vicksburg]. And on the 4th of July [1863], when the Federal troops marched in, he was standing on the sidewalk by the street, and he had on a coat with large brass buttons down the front of it. And he was standing there watching these Federal soldiers who had been trying to kill him all these days, and out of the ranks stepped a very large black corporal and took out a knife, which my uncle thought he was going to use to cut his throat. Instead he cut the buttons off his blouse and put them in his pocket and got back in ranks. Uncle Jolley told me about that when I was a little boy, and I could put myself in his position. It must have been terrifying."_

* * *

_As always, thank you to the reader!_

_Gunney_


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Wild Wild West, Angst, Mystery